The Prince's Son
by Enjolrras
Summary: As Martin Severus Snape starts his sixth year at Hogwarts, several things are different: his dorm mate Cedric is selected as a Triwizard champion, his father is suddenly more agitated than usual, and something on his dad's forearm seems to bother him - could this have anything to do with You-Know-Who? And then there's this new boy, Ramin, who turns Martin's world upside down ...
1. Prologue - The Prince

Prologue – The Prince

"_Once upon another time, our story had only begun_

_I had a taste of joy_

_The most I ever knew_

_Now there isn't any time and somehow our story is done_

_And what about the boy?_

_What am I to do?"_

"_Just love, just live, and give what you can give_

_And take the love that you deserve."_

* * *

Her Patronus appeared just as he was opening _Perils in Potions: A Description of the 50 Most Dangerous Magical Substances_ for a bit of advanced study. The doe stood before him, giving off an ethereal glow. And in her voice, it spoke: "The North London Hospital. Third floor, Room 319. Come at once."

He stared at it for two seconds, frozen in place. He had been waiting for this moment to arrive for days, but now that it had, it took a few moments for him to truly register her words, to grasp their meaning. Then, quite suddenly, he jumped to his feet, the huge Potions volume falling forgotten out of his hands as he hastened to the basement steps. He took them three at a time, hurtled around a corner and threw open a cupboard door. He stopped, breathing hard. His heart and thoughts were racing, and he paused for a moment to try and collect himself. It would not do to panic, not now. He knew what he must do.

Gingerly, he reached into the cupboard and pulled the cat out by its tail. It had been dead for a while now, but his Preserving Spell had kept it from decaying. Dangling from his hand like that, it still looked as though it had only just died. _Good_, he thought. This was how it was supposed to be, how he had planned it. Now he had to take the next step.

His free hand reached into the pocket of his robes and found his wand. He stared at the cat for a few seconds, trying to suppress the unease he felt at what must come next, then pointed his wand straight at it. _Infamutatio!_ he thought, and for an instant, he was blinded by a flash of yellow light. The next second, it was gone. Everything was just as it had been a moment ago – except …

He stared at the thing that had once been the dead cat, turning it over gingerly in his hands. He was not an expert at this kind of thing, but it seemed to him that there was no way to tell the difference between this transfigured replica of a dead infant and a real dead baby. He exhaled, relieved that this part, at any rate, was over, and pointed his wand once more at the body of the dead boy he was now holding instead of the cat's, saying in his mind, _Aeternae!_

The tiny body grew hot against his skin, then the warmth faded, leaving it dead and cold again. Nothing had changed, yet he knew that it would now be impossible to transfigure the body back into what it had been before. The dead baby boy would now remain a dead baby boy forever.

He took a last look at the body, then wrapped it in a blanket and tightened his grip around it. Closing his eyes, he thought with all his might, _North London Hospital, Room 319_ while turning on the spot. With a loud _crack_, both he and the bundle in his hand vanished.

* * *

They reappeared in a small room on the third floor of the North London Hospital. He steadied himself, his eyes rapidly scanning the room. There was a window with some flowers on the ledge, two doors leading in different directions, and a bed. He barely even noticed the two nurses lying on the floor beside the bed, apparently unconscious. Stepping over them carelessly, he took two steps toward the bed and the woman who was lying in it. Her red hair obscured part of her face, and she looked exhausted, yet her green eyes were wide awake and fixed on him as he approached. He met her gaze for a few seconds, then swallowed, and lowered his eyes to look at the bundle the woman was holding in her arms, in size and shape very much like the one he himself had brought with him. There, however, the similarities ended.

The baby was sleeping, his small hands balled into fists next to his tiny face. The right fist was twitching slightly, as though he was trying to thwart off an invisible fly. His lips were opened just a fraction of an inch, and on his head, there was a tuft of hair. It was pitch-black, just like his own.

His eyes were fixed on the child, taking in every inch of his tiny body, nose, lips, chin, closed eyelids, ears, hair, fingers. It was all so miniscule, so impossibly tiny, that it looked fragile enough to break at the slightest touch. Yet he was complete. A tiny, perfect little human taking his first breaths on Earth.

And he was his.

He swallowed, tearing his eyes away from the boy – _his son _– with great effort and meeting the woman's eyes again.

"Are you" – he cleared his throat, his voice sounding very hoarse all of a sudden – "are you sure you don't want to keep him?"

A shadow fell over her eyes, and he got a hint of how much it cost her to fulfil her part of the plan, to do what they both knew had to be done. The pain visible in her eyes was enough to make him yearn to hold her in his arms, to tell her that everything was going to be all right, that he would always protect her against all harm. Yet she had not chosen him for that task, but the man who was now doubtlessly standing right outside the door, waiting, wondering, hoping and praying.

The thought that James Potter would, when he entered the room in a few minutes' time, find that all his hopes had been in vain, that all his dreams were smashed to bits and pieces, filled him with savage pleasure. The thought of how much pain all this would inflict upon Lily tore his heart apart; the idea of James's torture gave him nothing but grim satisfaction. It was time, high time, that he, Severus Snape, gave James Potter a dose of what he had received from him during the seven years of their time at Hogwarts.

Lily's answer turned his thoughts away from the man he hated, and back to the woman he loved.

"I _can't_, Sev," she whispered, the pain in her voice piercing him like a knife. "If he grows up and looks like you and James finds out, he … he'd…"

Her voice trailed off, apparently uncertain of just what her fiancé would do if he found out that the boy he had believed to be his son was, in fact, the seed of his worst enemy.

"You must take him," she continued, her voice stronger now. As he looked into her eyes, he saw a resolute determination there, not quite blocking out the pain, but still overpowering it. This imperturbable strength inside her was one of the things he loved about her the most.

"Give him a loving home," she whispered, looking down at her son, caressing his soft black hair. "The home you never had, Sev. You must be father _and_ mother to him. Promise me that."

He looked down at her, and at the boy in her arms. "I promise," he said, in no more than a whisper, yet in all his life, he had never meant any words as much as those.

"_Don't_ let him get in contact with those … those _friends _of yours," she said, her voice suddenly filled with hatred. "I won't have our son raised in prejudice and warped beliefs. I want him to make his own mind up about the world, and to judge others for who they are, not their ancestors. _Swear_ to me, Sev, that you will never let him become a Death Eater. Never. _Swear_ it!"

_Our son_. Her words echoed in his head, engraved themselves on his heart. He looked into her fierce green eyes and said, quietly: "I swear it."

She relaxed slightly, sinking back into the cushions. "Did you bring … it?" she asked, hesitating slightly at the last word.

He nodded and put his bundle down upon the bed. The dead boy's face was not terribly unlike his son's, yet there could be no question of confusion. His boy radiated life while the other was still and unmoving. Dead.

"What will you tell them?" he asked, though he knew. He just wanted to be absolutely sure that they really were going to get away with this deception, this plan sprung up from desperation and countless hours of scheming and plotting, finally settling on it because there had been no other way.

"When you've gone, I'll lift those Stunning Spells on the nurses," Lily said calmly. "I've already modified their memories. They won't remember being Stunned. It'll be as if I had just given birth to a stillborn baby. They'll call James in and tell him that his son is dead." Her voice quivered slightly at that last bit, but there was no hesitation, no doubt in her words. There was no going back. She would stick to the plan.

He nodded, then swallowed. Now that it was time to take his son – _their _son – and go, he was suddenly not sure if he could really do it. He was eighteen years old. Was he really able to bring up a child all by himself?

The idea scared him worse than anything. He was so afraid of failing her, failing her son, failing himself. And yet he had no choice.

Hesitantly, he stepped up to the bed, and when he stood right beside her, Lily lifted her bundle, kissed the child on the forehead, then placed him in his arms.

"Go now, Sev," she said, her voice thick and choking. He knew she was desperately trying to keep it together, and every second's delay would only make the parting harder.

"I'll love him, Lily," he whispered to her, desperate to give her at least some small comfort. "He won't ever want for anything, I promise."

She looked up at him. Tears were now streaming down her face, but the smile she gave him was genuine and full of fondness.

"I know you will," she said and squeezed his arm. Whether to reassure him or herself, he did not know, yet it made him feel stronger. Then, he felt something close around his left ring finger.

His son had not woken up, yet one of those tiny fists had opened and closed tightly around his finger. The baby's hand was so small that he could barely reach all the way around it, yet there was a strength in his grip that Severus had not expected. As he looked down at his son grasping his finger, something in his chest swelled. Suddenly, there was no room for doubt anymore. All that remained was love.

"Goodbye, Lily," he said, meeting her tear-filled eyes for one last time.

He would not disappoint her, he vowed to himself in that instant. Not her, nor his son.

Then he turned on the spot and disapparated.

* * *

Author's Note:

Hello to you, reader, and I'm very pleased you made it this far! :)

This is the first long story I'm publishing here. It's still in progress, so I can't promise regular updates, but I'll try to do it once a week or so. I'm not an English native speaker, so if you spot any mistakes in grammar or spelling, then please tell me so I can correct them.

A huge thanks goes to my first beta Citywriter84, without whose corrections I wouldn't have had the courage to publish this story here, and also to my dear friend Sambadi, who was the first to give me advice on the story. More thanks than I can possibly spell out here also go to my new beta SleepyEnigma, who has helped me more than I can say with grammar, spelling, content and everything else important for this story, and I hope both I as the author and you as the readers of this story will continue to benefit from her valuable input for a very long time!

I had a lot of fun writing this story, and now I'm dying to know if you had fun reading it, so please review and let me know what you think!

The quotation at the beginning is taken from Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Love Never Dies," lyrics by Glenn Slater.


	2. Chapter One - A New Student

Chapter One – A New Student

* * *

"Hi! Is it okay if I sit here?" A cheerful voice said in what sounded like an American accent, and Martin looked up to see a black-haired boy sticking his head through the compartment door.

"Sure," he said with a shy smile and carefully marked the page in his book before closing it.

The boy returned the smile and carried his heavy trunk into the compartment before collapsing into the seat opposite him.

"Thanks," he said, sounding thoroughly relieved. "I must've been through the whole train, but everywhere's full. I really didn't fancy spending the entire journey on my trunk."

Martin continued to smile, but he couldn't think of any reply to this, so he remained silent.

He studied the boy curiously. He had hair as black as his own, but while Martin's always lay flat, this boy's was in slight disarray, and it looked to Martin as though the boy had spent some time arranging it into precisely that shape. He had brown eyes and was rather tall. There was an air of mischief about him that Martin had come over the years to associate mainly with Fred and George Weasley. The boy had to be about his own age, 16 or 17, but Martin was quite sure that he had never seen him before at Hogwarts. He hesitated, always finding it difficult to talk to strangers, but his curiosity got the better of him and he asked: "You're new at Hogwarts, aren't you?"

The boy nodded. He, unlike Martin, didn't seem to be at all uncomfortable.

"My parents moved here in the summer because my dad got a new job in London. I've been going to school in America, but now I'm starting my sixth year at Hogwarts. I'm Ramin."

He held out his hand, and Martin took it.

"Martin."

"Are you a sixth-year, too?"

He nodded. Ramin seemed genuinely nice, though much more energetic than he was himself. Then again, the same could be said about most people.

"Which house are you in?" Ramin asked him, still smiling.

"Hufflepuff," Martin replied with a rather sheepish smile, though not without a hint of pride in his voice. Despite the house's reputation, he had always enjoyed being a Hufflepuff very much.

Ramin grinned. "The one with a lot of duffers?"

Martin looked at him coolly. Had he been wrong in assuming he was nice?

But Ramin already smiled at him apologetically. "Just kidding. I think it's stupid to judge a person by the house they're in. I mean, sure, it does say something about your character, I suppose, but I'm sure not everyone in Gryffindor is brilliant and everyone in Slytherin is a jerk, you know what I mean?"

Martin nodded, his doubts about the boy's character vanishing on the spot. This was exactly how _he_ happened to feel about the prejudices about the different houses, too.

"And anyway," Ramin continued, "I think Hufflepuff's reputation is totally underserved. _I'd _rather be friends with a hard-working, loyal person than one who'd use any means to achieve his ends."

Martin smiled and said, involuntarily, "Now you're prejudicing, you know."

As soon as he'd said it, he wished he hadn't. He wasn't usually a know-it-all, because he was in fact very far from knowing it all, but every now and again he seemed to be unable to stop himself from talking before thinking.

Ramin, however, laughed. "Busted," he said, grinning. "I vow to do better in future."

He said this in such an official tone of voice, as if he had just been reprimanded by a judge for being imprecise in a court hearing, that Martin had to laugh.

"I wonder which house I'll be Sorted into," Ramin mused. "I'm really looking forward to the Sorting! Is it true that the Hat sings a different song every year?"

"Yes," Martin replied, and smiling to himself, he thought that although he hadn't known Ramin for more than five minutes, he had a very good idea which house he would be Sorted into, and he felt a bit disappointed that it wouldn't be Hufflepuff. "It usually tells the story of the four Hogwarts founders or talks about the qualities of the different houses. I always look forward to it."

"I can't wait to hear it," Ramin replied excitedly.

"Will you be Sorted today, with the first-years?" Martin asked and couldn't help thinking that it would make quite a comical sight to have a person twice as tall as the rest sticking out of the group of first-years like a lighthouse from the sea.

"Yep," Ramin said, grinning broadly. Evidently the prospect of having the whole school staring at him didn't bother him in the slightest. "So, what's it like at Hogwarts? How are the teachers? How's _Dumbledore_?" His voice was positively quivering with excitement as he said the Headmaster's name.

Martin, feeling that he couldn't quite accurately describe the brilliance, wit and humour, as well as the occasional weirdness of his Headmaster, simply said, "You'll see him tonight. He always gives a start-of-term speech after dinner. In fact," he continued, just remembering, "he's supposed to announce something special today. Something that's going to take place at Hogwarts this year."

Ramin leaned forward slightly, evidently interested. "Something that's going to take place at Hogwarts? What is it, some kind of special event?"

Martin shrugged. "I dunno. I think the Ministry's somehow involved, but my father didn't really go into details."

"Is he with the Ministry, then?" Ramin asked.

Martin smiled. "No. He's a teacher."

Ramin looked at him with big round eyes. "At Hogwarts? Awesome! What does he teach?"

Martin felt a wave of relief that Ramin didn't seem to think that it automatically made him a teacher's pet and a geek to have his own father as a teacher. He didn't really know why anyone would think that – the teachers treated him like any other student, and in his father's lessons you couldn't have told he was the teacher's son if it hadn't been for his name and their striking physical resemblance. But he knew that with his father's blatant favouritism of his house's students, he couldn't blame other people for having a low opinion of the professor. What he did not understand, though, was why these feelings had to be projected upon _him_. He, after all, had no influence whatsoever on his father's way of teaching, and anyone who thought differently really was a fool. And besides, his father's subject, Potions, was really the only one which he was very good at. In everything else, he was average, and although he had scraped O.W.L.s in History of Magic, Care of Magical Creatures and Muggle Studies, which he would nevertheless not be continuing to N.E.W.T. level, Transfiguration, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Charms, Herbology and, of course, Potions, he had only managed it by working very hard throughout the previous year.

It was, at least in Martin's opinion, perfectly obvious that he was not favoured by any of his teachers for being Severus Snape's son. But many of his fellow students seemed to dislike him anyway, even though they hardly knew him. He suspected that this was partly because he was, and always had been, very shy and had never found it easy to take the first step and just talk to people. From a distance this shyness could, he supposed, probably be mistaken for arrogance. And then, of course, he was Professor Snape's son, who even Martin knew was the least popular teacher of the school. The combination of these two factors seemed to be enough for many people to develop a dislike to him. This didn't actually bother him that much because he had never felt the need to be popular with everyone and was actually quite happy just keeping himself to himself. Besides, he _was_ friends with his dorm mates, Cedric, Edward and John. Still, over the years he had learned to despise prejudice of any kind because he firmly believed that you could never judge a person unless you knew them, and very possibly not even then. He was therefore very pleased that Ramin hadn't immediately jumped to conclusions about him just because his father taught at Hogwarts.

"Potions," he said, in response to Ramin's question. "But he's always really wanted Defence Against the Dark Arts."

Ramin grinned. "That's funny. Potions is my worst subject, and Defence is easily my best. Is he a good teacher?"

Martin felt slightly uncomfortable at this question. _He _had always learned a great deal from his father, but he also knew that the answer most students would have given was a straight _no_.

"He's … a _brilliant _Potions Master," he finally decided to say, "but I'm afraid he's not very patient with people who aren't very … talented in the subject."

Ramin grimaced. "Me, then. Great, and I really need an N.E.W.T. in Potions to become an Auror."

"Are you allowed to continue Potions to N.E.W.T. level, then?" Martin asked, frowning. "Usually my dad doesn't take anyone who hasn't got an 'Outstanding' in their O.W.L.s."

"I know," Ramin said, "a Professor McGonagall, who handled my transfer to Hogwarts, told us. But because I had my exams after the fourth, not the fifth year at Ilvermorny – that's the American magic school, by the way – we argued that the results weren't really comparable. She agreed to let me continue on a trial basis, but I can be kicked out if I'm deemed too hopeless." He smiled again, but it was obvious to Martin that this really bothered him.

"I'll help you if you help me," Martin offered, surprising himself by saying it. "Potions is my best subject, but I'm awful in Defence. I only just managed an 'Acceptable' in my O.W.L.s, and I want to bring it up to at least an 'Exceeds Expectations' in the N.E.W.T.s, because that opens up all sorts of job possibilities."

Ramin smiled widely. "Deal! You'll have an 'Outstanding' in your N.E.W.T.s, I swear."

Martin sceptically raised an eyebrow. "I reckon the only way I'll manage that is by sending you into that exam under the effect of Polyjuice Potion."

"No problem," Ramin grinned. "You'll have to brew it, though, I wouldn't dare drink anything I made."

"It's a deal," Martin said, grinning back at Ramin. He found that he really enjoyed talking to him. "But just in case we don't want to risk it because of the anti-cheating measures after all, let's try to bring our own skills up over the next two years."

Ramin waved his hand in an airy gesture, as if he couldn't care less about things as insignificant as anti-cheating measures.

"What about Quidditch?" he asked, changing the subject. "There's an inter-house competition every year, isn't there?"

"Yes," Martin replied, not at all surprised that Ramin was keen on Quidditch. "Each house plays every other house once. The team that wins most matches wins the Quidditch Cup. If there's more than one team with the same number of victories, the winner is the team that scored most points overall. That's the way it was last year, when Gryffindor won the Cup."

"How can you get on the teams?" Ramin asked eagerly.

"There are tryouts at the beginning of each year," Martin explained. "Those who want to play for their house team must give their name to their Head of House." He smiled at Ramin. "What position do you play?"

"All sorts," Ramin said, "except Keeper. I like Chaser best though. What about you? Do you play?"

Martin shook his head. "No. Cedric, my classmate, is Hufflepuff's captain, though. He's a Seeker and he's really good. Last year's season was the best in years."

"Why don't you play? Don't you like Quidditch?" Ramin asked, clearly astonished at the thought that someone in the world might not enjoy playing Quidditch.

"On the contrary," Martin replied, feeling the familiar stab of bitter disappointment, "I love Quidditch. Before I came to Hogwarts, it was the thing I was looking forward to most. But … well, suffice to say, brooms don't seem to like me very much."

"You mean, you're a bad flyer?" Ramin asked. It was a rather blunt question, but Martin didn't mind. He was sure that Ramin wasn't going to take the mickey out of him, but instead had the impression that he was keen to solve the problem. Ramin, Martin thought, seemed to be thoroughly convinced of the saying _Where there's a will, there's a way_.

"It's not so much a bad flyer," he answered, truthfully, "it's no flyer at all. In my very first flying lesson, I had to say 'Up!' four times before the broom consented to lift itself off the ground, and even then, I still had to bend down to pick it up. When we were told to mount our broomsticks and kick off, it started bucking like mad and threw me off in about two seconds. That was the end of my flying career."

Ramin stared at him as his jaw dropped. "You _never_ got on a broomstick again?"

"I wanted to give it another go," Martin said, half-shrugging. "But not with anyone watching. And we weren't allowed to practise alone, so I gave it up. And it's okay, you know? I've sort of resigned myself to it."

Ramin was still staring at him. There was a sort of glint in his eyes that immediately gave Martin the feeling that trouble was on the way. "Does that mean you wouldn't want to try to fly again if you had the chance?" Ramin asked.

Martin hesitated. He had buried that dream so long ago, and he didn't really want to get all his hopes up again now. On the other hand, a lot of time had passed since that first disastrous attempt. "No, it doesn't, I suppose … so long as nobody's watching."

Ramin leaned back in his seat, grinning broadly. "You'll fly," he said, in a tone that brooked no argument.

"I –," Martin started to say, but Ramin raised his hand and cut him off.

"No questions," he said, still grinning, "no arguing. You will fly."

Martin considered pressing him, but then decided to let it go. There was a sort of giddy anxiety somewhere in the region of his stomach. He _really_ wondered what Ramin was up to.

"Were you at the World Cup, then?" Martin asked, and Ramin's eyes lit up.

"Yeah, it was brilliant! The moves the Irish Chasers made – awesome! The best match I've _ever _seen! You wouldn't believe how …"

He went on describing the match in loving detail, and Martin listened with great interest. He had not been at the World Cup himself, because his father despised events where there were huge crowds present, but he had, of course, read all about it afterwards in the Daily Prophet. But as Ramin described the match, he could somehow see it much better than he had when reading the articles about it.

"… and then Krum caught the Snitch with blood all over his face, but Ireland still won," Ramin finally concluded, his eyes glowing with admiration for the players.

"I bet that was an outcome nobody expected," Martin said.

Ramin thoughtfully weighed his head from side to side. "I dunno," he said, slowly. "Krum was obviously the best player on the pitch, but the Irish Chasers where loads better than the Bulgarians. It was pretty obvious that the Irish Chasers would score more goals, but that Krum would catch the Snitch. So, the only real question was when the Snitch would appear. If it had done that earlier, before the Irish had time to build up a huge lead, then Bulgaria would have won. But as it was, with the Snitch appearing that late, Krum catching the Snitch and Ireland winning the match was really the logical outcome."

Martin stared at Ramin, impressed. He had never thought of it like that before. It sounded as though Ramin was interested in Quidditch tactics, too, not just playing.

The door of their compartment opened, and the witch pushing the lunch trolley stuck her head through it. "Anything off the trolley, dears?"

"Yes!" They both replied simultaneously and jumped to their feet. When they'd got a stack of everything the trolley provided – Martin would have skipped Bertie Bott's Every-Flavour Beans, but Ramin insisted – they settled down comfortably again and ate in silence for a while, watching the landscape whizz by. When they got around to eating their Chocolate Frogs, Ramin stared enthusiastically at the cards. Apparently Chocolate Frogs where not popular in America and so he had never seen them before. He gazed in awe at the picture of Albus Dumbledore, then looked up at Martin beaming. "He winked at me!"

"He always winks," Martin replied, grinning. "If you get Hecate, give her to me, will you? I'm still missing her."

Martin enjoyed himself enormously, eating the sweets with Ramin. Usually, he rode the Hogwarts Express either alone or with his friends from Hufflepuff, but even that wasn't nearly as much fun as he was having now. He realised that he really hoped that he and Ramin, although he was sure they were going to be in different houses, would become firm friends at Hogwarts.

Ramin proved his destiny of becoming a Gryffindor beyond any doubt when they arrived at the Every-Flavour Beans. He would eat _anything_, even a bean of which Martin was sure was vomit-flavoured. He watched with bated breath as Ramin put the bean into his mouth, chewed, frowned, seemed to shift it from one side of his mouth to the other, then, finally, swallowed. "I dunno," he said, pondering. "It tasted more like dirty socks to me, to be honest."

Martin stared at him – and then decided not to inquire as to how Ramin might be able to identify the taste of dirty socks.

When they had at last eaten all their sweets, the sky was almost completely dark. They decided to change into their robes, and after they'd finished, Martin asked curiously, "Will you travel in the boats with the first-years?"

"Yep," Ramin replied, grinning. "Same procedure for everyone who's new at Hogwarts. I'm supposed to follow a guy called Hagrid. I asked how I would recognise him, but McGonagall just said he couldn't possibly be missed … What does that mean?"

Martin grinned broadly. He was very fond of Hagrid, even though his idea of "dangerous creatures" did differ from that of most other people. But Hagrid, he thought, always saw the best in everyone. That included animals – and Martin himself, too, and for that he had always been profoundly grateful.

"Just trust her," he replied, and refused to give any more information.

When they got off the train – minus their luggage, which would be brought into the school for them – they instantly heard the familiar "Firs'-years! Firs'-years over here!" even over the howling wind and pouring rain. And then, as an afterthought: "Oh, an' a Mr – Ramin Wilkinson, yeah, that's right – a Mr Ramin Wilkinson also over here, please!"

Ramin turned towards the sound and Martin saw his mouth fall open. "Wow!" he said, in an awestruck voice. "Martin, is he – is he a _giant_?"

"I dunno," Martin replied. "Maybe he's half-giant or something. But anyway, he's really, really nice."

"Wicked," Ramin whispered, with positive adoration in his voice. "Awesome! Well – see you later then, I guess!"

And with a smile and a wave, he vanished into the crowd of students.

* * *

Author's note:

Here's chapter one! Please review and tell me what you think!

The trolley witch's "Anything off the trolley, dears?" is quoted directly from _Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone_ by J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, London _et al._, 2014, first edition published in 1997, p. 107.

Hagrid's "Firs'-years over here!" is quoted directly from the same source, p. 118.

I got the name of Ramin's former school, Ilvermorny, from Pottermore, along with much more information about witches and wizards in America that I'll put to good use in this story ;) The background story of the school can be found on Pottermore, in the J.K. Rowling archive, if anyone would like to read up on it.


	3. Chapter 2: The Headmaster's Announcement

Chapter Two – The Headmaster's Announcement

* * *

"Wilkinson, Ramin!"

His was the last name to be called. Martin leaned forward in his seat at the Hufflepuff table, trying to get a good view of a – due to the horrible weather – sopping wet Ramin, who walked forward without hesitating, placed the Sorting Hat on his head, and had barely sat for three seconds when the Hat shouted, as Martin had known it would, "Gryffindor!"

Ramin smiled, took off the Hat and handed it to Professor McGonagall before joining the cheering Gryffindor table. Martin saw him sit down next to Fred and George Weasley and Lee Jordan, but as Ramin caught his eye, he smiled widely and waved at him. Martin grinned back and then turned his attention towards the staff table, where Professor Dumbledore had just stood up. Two seats away from him sat his father, who didn't smile at him when they made eye contact, but Martin knew – even though he couldn't see it from across the hall – that his father's eyes were glowing warmly. Martin gave him a fleeting smile, then looked at Dumbledore again.

"I have only two words to say to you," he said, his arms opened wide in a gesture of welcome. "Tuck in."

Martin grinned and saw that Ramin was beaming as well. Clearly, he was impressed by his hero's words.

"At last," Martin heard John say across from him, "I'm starving."

So was he, and he loaded his plate with potatoes, a steak and a rich, dark gravy and began to eat. Around him, the hottest topic of conversation was, unsurprisingly, the Quidditch World Cup. Apparently, Cedric, John and Edward had all been there and wanted to talk about their favourite moves, goals and players. Cedric spent a full ten minutes describing the superb Wronski Feint that Viktor Krum had pulled off and thereafter laid out the exact manner in which he planned to use that same diversion in the next Quidditch match to secure the win for Hufflepuff. John, who was on the team as Beater, argued that this move was far too difficult and dangerous to be pulled off in a school championship, and that Cedric should concentrate on bringing their Chasers up to snuff instead of a tactic that was highly unlikely to lead to any success. Cedric, clearly irritated by this, told John rather brusquely to "mind your own game, because that really could have been much better in the last match last year."

Before John could come up with an equally heated response, Martin quickly chimed in. "What about the Dark Mark and the Death Eaters at the World Cup, then? What do you reckon that was about?"

The others seized upon the topic eagerly, and they discussed at length the tormenting of those poor Muggles whose memories had had to be modified, the Death Eater's bold appearance in a place crowded with wizards, the Ministry's complete lack of ability to cope with the situation (though this particular topic was put aside quickly, since both Cedric and John had parents working at the Ministry), and, of course, the Dark Mark.

"It hadn't been seen for thirteen years," John said in a hushed, almost awed voice. "My mother said it used to terrify people because the Death Eaters used it to mark the places where they'd killed! I mean, imagine coming home from work one day to find the Dark Mark hovering over your house! No wonder people went berserk!"

Cedric nodded in agreement. "My father said that hardly anybody knows how to conjure it anymore. You know that Mr Crouch's elf was found right at the place where it was conjured?"

"It's not his anymore, is it?" John said, stuffing a spoonful of pudding into his mouth, just as it appeared on the table. "Didn't he threaten it with clothes right after it happened?"

"He did, my dad saw it!" Cedric said excitedly. "He told me Mr Crouch was furious with it. It had disobeyed its instructions, you know. Was supposed to stay at the campsite. But instead, it went off into the forest!"

"But it couldn't have conjured the Mark, surely?" Edward asked. "I mean, it's a wizard's spell, isn't it?"

Cedric shook his head. "No, no, it didn't conjure it. But it must have been feet away from the real culprit! I wonder why it didn't see anyone."

"Maybe it did, but refuses to say anything," John mused.

"Wouldn't it have to, if Mr Crouch ordered it to?" Edward asked.

"Not anymore," said Cedric. "If he's given it clothes, it's free now, isn't it?" He laughed. "Perhaps it's joined the Death Eaters."

Martin listened carefully but kept himself out of the conversation. His main information about that night came from the Daily Prophet, and he was careful not to rely on that too much. He also thought it extremely unlikely that an elf could have conjured the Dark Mark or been appointed to somehow assist conjuring it by the Death Eaters. Surely a Death Eater wouldn't entrust such an important task to a creature that he considered to be far beneath him? Martin was quite sure that Mr Crouch's elf had run off from the campsite frightened, sought refuge in the forest, and simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. He thought Mr Crouch's dismissal of the elf cruel and unfair and was feeling genuinely sorry for it.

When they had all finished their puddings, the leftovers vanished from the table, and everyone's attention turned once more towards the staff table where the Headmaster had just got up again to deliver his proper start-of-term speech.

"So," said Dumbledore, smiling down at them fondly, "now that we are all fed and watered, I must once more ask for your attention, while I give out a few notices."

Martin listened impatiently while Dumbledore updated them on the newest forbidden objects on Filch's ever growing list. He knew that, any moment now, the Headmaster would tell them all about the mysterious event that was going to take place at Hogwarts this year, and he couldn't wait to learn what it was.

However, Dumbledore continued with the usual warning that the Forest was out-of-bounds for students before he said, "It is also my painful duty to inform you that the inter-house Quidditch Cup will not take place this year."

"_What?!"_ said Cedric and John together, aghast. They were not the only ones looking at Dumbledore in outrage. Martin, too, was surprised. Could this be because of that other event? How major could it possibly be to prevent the Quidditch from taking place?

"This is due to an event that will be starting in October, and continuing throughout the school year, taking up much of the teachers' time and energy," Dumbledore continued, voice raised slightly over the horrified gasps of the students deprived of their beloved Quidditch, "but I am sure you will all enjoy it immensely. I have great pleasure in announcing that this year at Hogwarts –"

But right then, an enormous roar of thunder echoed through the Great Hall, and the double doors banged open. Martin spun around in his seat to see what the commotion was about, and saw a man standing in the doorway, illuminated for a second by a fork of lightning flashing across the ceiling. He was leaning heavily upon a staff, and as Martin and every other student in the Hall watched, he lowered the hood of his traveling cloak and began to walk towards the staff table. At every second step, a loud _clunk_ echoed through the Hall, and he was limping heavily. Martin realised that the man must have a wooden leg.

"Who is that?" he whispered, to no one in particular.

"No idea," Edward answered, in an equally hushed voice. But just then, another flash of lightning illuminated the ceiling, and Cedric gasped.

"It's Mad-Eye Moody!" he hissed excitedly. "My dad's told me about him! He was a top Auror once, but now he's supposed to be a bit mad! What's he doing here?"

Martin didn't answer. He was momentarily unable to speak.

The flash of lightning had illuminated the man's face, and it was a face unlike any he had ever seen before. It looked leathery, as if the man was wearing a mask that was supposed to resemble human skin but did a very poor job of it. It took a couple of seconds for Martin to realise that this impression was given by countless scars etched into the man's face. In fact, there didn't seem to be an inch of skin that was _not _scarred, Martin realised to his horror. A whole chunk of the man's nose was missing, and where both his eyes should be, there was only one eye that could be described as human. In the other socket, there was a large, round, blue _something_ that was moving constantly around, up, down, left, right, even into the man's head from time to time. Staring at the thing that Martin supposed was the replacement of the normal eye that must have been lost, it was not exactly hard to guess how the man had come by his nickname, "Mad-Eye."

Martin watched him limping towards the staff table, unable to take his eyes off the man. Cedric had said he had been an Auror. Was this what came of being a Dark-wizard-catcher, then? He remembered Ramin saying on the train that _his_ ambition was to become an Auror, and Martin tried to imagine _him_ with a wooden leg, a scarred face, half a nose and only one eye. He shuddered. Had Moody's success in his job, the Dark wizards he had caught, really been worth this much disfigurement? The immediate answer that came into his head was _yes_, but after all, _he _wasn't the one who'd had to pay the price. He wondered what Moody himself would say if asked that question.

Moody's limp across the Hall seemed to take forever, and while it lasted, every eye in the Hall was fixed, awestruck, upon him. When he finally reached Dumbledore, Moody shook his hand, and they exchanged a few muttered words that were too hushed to make out, before Moody sat down upon the chair on Dumbledore's right-hand side. All the while, the bright blue thing in his eye socket – for want of a better word, Martin reluctantly called it "eye" – kept whizzing around, taking in the Great Hall and the students.

"May I introduce our new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Moody," Dumbledore said, breaking the silence.

Nobody except Dumbledore himself and Hagrid applauded.

"_Him?_" Cedric said, disbelief etched all over his voice. "A _teacher_?"

John was excited. "It's brilliant!" he said enthusiastically. "Just think what he'll be able to teach us! He's been out there for years, hunting Dark wizards and catching loads of them! There couldn't be anyone better to have for our N.E.W.T.s!"

Cedric opened his mouth, probably in order to disagree with John, when Dumbledore cleared his throat again.

"As I was saying, we are to have the honour of hosting a very exciting event over the coming months, an event which has not been held for over a century. It is my very great pleasure to inform you that the Triwizard Tournament will be taking place at Hogwarts this year."

"You're JOKING!" One of the Weasley twins exclaimed loudly.

Everybody laughed. But Martin simply stared at Dumbledore, dumbstruck. Could he actually be _serious_?

"I am _not _joking, Mr Weasley," Dumbledore chuckled, "though, now you mention it, I did hear an excellent one over the summer about a troll, a hag and a leprechaun who all go into a bar –"

At this, Professor McGonagall cleared her throat loudly.

"Er – but maybe this is not the time … no … where was I? Ah yes, the Triwizard Tournament … well, some of you will not know what this Tournament involves, so I hope those who _do _know will forgive me for giving a short explanation, and allow their attention to wander freely."

Martin took Dumbledore at his word. He had read quite a lot about the Triwizard Tournament and couldn't quite make up his mind whether he was delighted at its reinstatement or horrified. He thought that the Tournament, in which students from several magical schools in different countries came together, was an excellent chance to form ties of friendship between students and learn about the different ways of magical education and culture. These contacts between young wizards from all across Europe could, in his opinion, result in a great improvement of international magical cooperation and that was obviously a good thing.

On the other hand, the tasks had been so difficult and dangerous that severe injuries and even deaths had been far from uncommon. In each of the last three Tournaments, a champion had died: one killed by a troll, another caught in so many Devil's Snares that he had literally been torn to pieces, and the third so desperate to beat his opponent in their final race towards the Cup that he tried to curse her, and when all his attempts were deflected by the girl, he'd resorted, foolishly, to Fiendfyre. He himself had been killed almost instantly, engulfed by the flames, while the girl – the victor – had survived with horrible burns all over her body and had spent the next six months in St. Mungo's. After that, the Heads of the schools had been flooded with letters from furious parents, demanding that the Tournament be stopped at once, and they had given in to the pressure. Overall, Martin thought, the reinstatement of the Tournament was probably a good idea so long as the tasks were designed considerably less dangerous than they had been all those years ago.

He refocused his attention on Dumbledore just in time to hear that the delegations from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang would be arriving in October, and that the selection of the champions would take place at Hallowe'en. When Dumbledore announced that the winner of the Tournament would receive a thousand Galleons of personal prize money, an excited murmur went up all through the Great Hall. Looking at his friends, Martin saw that both Cedric's and John's eyes were glowing with eager anticipation, and when he looked over at the Gryffindor table, the Weasley twins, Lee Jordan and Ramin, too, were staring at Dumbledore. They were all looking as though they'd very much like the chance to prove right then and there that _they _were the only true Hogwarts champion.

"Eager though I know all of you will be to bring the Triwizard Cup to Hogwarts," Dumbledore continued, undoubtedly also aware of the excitement that had gripped the Great Hall, "the Heads of the participating schools, along with the Ministry of Magic, have agreed to impose an age restriction on contenders this year."

Martin exhaled, relieved. This sounded like a reasonable step towards ensuring the champions' safety in the Tournament, although he did not doubt that the notion would cause outrage among many students who were deemed too young to compete.

"Only students who are of age – that is to say, seventeen years or older – will be allowed to put forward their names for consideration."

As Martin had expected, noises of disappointment could be heard all over the Great Hall. "Come _on_," John said in a carrying whisper, "that's not fair, I'm turning seventeen in three months!"

Cedric, however, was still staring rapidly at Dumbledore. He, of course, as Martin realised with a sudden feeling of anxiety, would come of age at the end of September and would therefore be able to enter the Tournament.

"This is a measure we feel is necessary," the Headmaster went on in a slightly raised voice to be heard over the turmoil, "given that the Tournament tasks will still be difficult and dangerous, whatever precautions we take, and it is highly unlikely that students below sixth and seventh year will be able to cope with them. I will personally be ensuring that no underage student hoodwinks our impartial judge into making them Hogwarts champion. I therefore beg you not to waste your time submitting yourself if you are under seventeen."

Those last words seemed to Martin to be directed at the Gryffindor table, where Fred and George Weasley and their friend, Lee Jordan, were looking furious. Ramin, too, seemed to be disappointed, and although Martin was feeling sorry for him, he was also immensely relieved that Ramin would not be able to enter the Tournament.

In spite of the newly instated security measures, Martin realised that he still had a bad feeling about the Tournament's tasks and that he would very much prefer it if the Hogwarts champion were not one of his friends. He resolved to keep this to himself, however – he knew that the whole of Hufflepuff house would be delighted if one of their students, Cedric, for instance, were to be chosen to represent the school as champion. It would bring their house glory such as they had not known for decades, and, Martin thought, his housemates would be right to cherish it.

Angry with himself, he tried to shake off the sense of foreboding that had come over him, but couldn't quite manage it. He could not help feeling that these Tournament tasks meant nothing but a whole lot of unnecessary risks. Looking up at the teacher's faces, he realised that his father, and Professor McGonagall too, seemed to agree with him. Neither were looking happy as Dumbledore sent the students off to bed, and when he sat down again, both stood up and left the staff table rather quickly.

The students got up and began to file out of the Great Hall. Martin, John and Edward left Cedric behind, who, as a prefect, had to lead the Hufflepuff first-years to their common room.

"A shame about that age restriction, isn't it?" sighed John as they made their way past the kitchen, where they caught a last whiff of the delicious smells of dinner. "I would have loved to be Hogwarts champion. Just think about all the cool stuff you're gonna be allowed to do! And a thousand Galleons prize money …"

"I don't know," Edward said. "I don't think I'd enter even if I could. I mean, people have died, haven't they? It sounds too much of a risk to me, to be honest."

"Sure it's risky!" John replied. "What would be the point if the tasks were ridiculous things like transforming a kitten into a tin can or brewing some stupid potion? Wouldn't be much of a glorious win for the victor then, would it?"

He stopped before the entrance to the Hufflepuff common room, which today resembled a portrait of an old, bent-back woman clutching a ragged, worn sack and standing before an apple tree.

"Would you mind helping me, dears?" she croaked, and John reached into the picture, plucked an apple from the tree, and let it fall into the old woman's sack.

"Thank you," she said with a toothless grin, and the portrait dissolved, revealing the entrance to the Hufflepuff common room, which was full of comfortable armchairs and sofas and decorated with black-and-yellow hangings. At the opposite end of the room, stairs were leading up to several sets of glass doors that opened onto a terrace, giving the Hufflepuffs a sunny place to study, hang out and relax on warm days. The three of them turned right and went along the boy's corridor into their dormitory, where their trunks were already waiting for them.

"Do you think Cedric's going to enter?" Edward asked as he pulled on his pyjamas.

"Yes," Martin replied at once. "He'll go for it."

"He should!" John exclaimed excitedly. "He's a brilliant Seeker and good in every subject. He'd really stand a good chance of winning!"

"Cedric Diggory, Hogwarts champion," Edward said dreamily as he got into his four-poster. "Just think what that'd do for our house!"

"Cedric would be brilliant," John said, in a tone of deepest confidence. Despite their occasional bickering over Quidditch tactics, they had been best friends for years. "He'd win glory for Hogwarts and Hufflepuff!"

"Boy, I really hope he becomes school champion," Edward replied wistfully.

Martin said nothing. He just lay there, behind the closed yellow hangings of his four-poster, and tried to convince himself that it would really be a good thing if Cedric were to make school champion, but he was unsuccessful. The prospect of the Tournament's dangerous tasks simply continued to weigh on his mind, so, with an effort, he turned his thoughts instead to the train ride and the friend he hoped to have made in Ramin. They were both continuing the same subjects, and because the classes weren't separated into the different houses at N.E.W.T. level anymore, he'd have all his lessons together with him. That thought made him smile, and as he remembered all the things they'd talked and laughed about on the Hogwarts Express, it was no longer difficult to relax and fall asleep.

* * *

Author's note:

Thank you for reading, I hope you liked it! Please review and tell me what you think! :)

Everything Professor Dumbledore says in this chapter is quoted, directly and indirectly, from _Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire_ by J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, London, 2000, pp. 160-167.

Fred's "You're JOKING" exclamation is also quoted directly from the same source, p. 165.

The whole chapter is based on the events described in the pages 160-167 of this book.


	4. Chapter Three - Like Father, Like Son

Chapter Three – Like Father, Like Son

* * *

The next morning after breakfast, the sixth-years waited at their house tables for their Heads of House to hand out their new timetables. Since the teachers had to make sure that everyone had achieved the required O.W.L. grades to continue their chosen subjects, this took rather longer than usual.

"Snape," Professor Sprout said when she arrived at Martin's name. "Potions, Transfiguration, Charms, Herbology and Defence Against the Dark Arts. Well, that seems to be in order. Keep up the good work in Herbology, I was very pleased with it last year," she added kindly and handed Martin his timetable.

"Thank you, Professor," he replied and consulted the piece of parchment before him. To his delight, the first lesson on Monday morning was double Potions, to be followed by double Defence Against the Dark Arts this afternoon. Smiling, he turned towards the Gryffindor table, where the Weasley twins had just received their timetables and were now leaving the Great Hall – undoubtedly to enjoy a free morning, for Martin was sure that neither of them had achieved 'Outstanding' in their Potions O.W.L.s.

He waited until Ramin had also been given his timetable by Professor McGonagall, then went over to him. Ramin greeted him with a wide smile.

"Potions and Defence Against the Dark Arts," he said, grinning. "Something for each of us today, it seems."

"I suppose," Martin replied, also smiling. "Shall we go, then?"

Ramin nodded and together, they left the Great Hall towards the dungeons for their Potions class.

"Are you pleased with your Sorting?" Martin asked, and Ramin grinned.

"Yeah, I am. Fred, George and Lee are cool guys, but they can get on your nerves after a while. All they kept talking about last night was how to hoodwink that impartial judge to let them enter the Tournament."

"Aren't you going to try it, then?" Martin asked, surprised that Ramin didn't sound at all keen on the idea.

"There's no point," Ramin replied, as they turned into the Potions corridor. "If Dumbledore says there's no way anyone under seventeen can enter, then there's no way. I told them as much, but would they listen?" He grinned ironically as he opened the classroom door.

"Of course not," Martin said, glad that Ramin had so quickly overcome his disappointment about not being allowed to become Hogwarts champion.

Because they had been amongst the last to receive their timetables, they were also the last to arrive at Potions, just short of being late. Professor Snape greeted them with a piercing stare from his black eyes, and Martin knew at once that this was not his father who was standing before him now, but his teacher. Without another word, he and Ramin quickly settled themselves in one of the many empty desks in the classroom.

At a quick glance around, Martin saw that the Potions N.E.W.T. class was piteously small. He himself was the only Hufflepuff there, as Ramin was the only Gryffindor. Besides them, there were two girls from Slytherin and a girl and two boys from Ravenclaw. That meant that all in all, only six students had managed an 'O' in their Potions O.W.L.s – Ramin, of course, did not count. Martin had always known there wouldn't be many students continuing Potions to N.E.W.T. level, but he had still never imagined that they would be this few. It meant that each and every one of them would be under close surveillance from their teacher the whole time – any mistake would be obvious right away. He wasn't worried for himself, but if Ramin was as bad at Potions as he made himself out to be, they would have a lot of work in their free periods to stop him from being thrown out of class – which, Martin knew, his father would not hesitate to do if he thought Ramin could not cope with the lessons.

At precisely nine o'clock, the classroom door banged shut, and the seven students stared at their teacher, quills in hand, ready for their first N.E.W.T. lesson to begin.

Professor Snape's gaze lingered on each of their faces for a moment, and as usual, Martin felt a tingling sensation arising somewhere in his belly that was directly associated with potion-brewing. He could not wait to begin.

"So," his father said in the low voice that made every Hogwarts student hold their breath, giving them the unmistakable feeling that this was not a man to mess with.

"As you have been cleared by your Heads of house to continue this subject to N.E.W.T. level, it seems that some in your disastrous year did manage an 'Outstanding' in your O.W.L.s in Potions after all … few though you are," he added, menacingly. "If truth be told, I am surprised that even as many as seven should be allowed to come back. I had not expected to see more than three or four return." His gaze lingered on one of the Ravenclaw boys, Kenneth Towler, for a moment. "And, as things stand, our number will most likely be … reduced further in the coming weeks." He looked directly at Ramin, who, to his credit, neither flinched nor looked away, but met the teacher's eyes with a determined stare of his own, intent, Martin strongly suspected, on proving him wrong.

"I should warn you," Professor Snape continued, in a slightly louder voice now, "that this goes for all of you. The potions we are going to cover in the next two years are some of the most effective, powerful, dangerous and therefore also most complicated and difficult magical substances you will ever encounter. In this very room we will brew truth, deception, love, luck, and death … or at least try to," he added, a malicious smile on his lips. "Those of you who find that they are unable to keep up with the coursework should either put all their time and energy into achieving better results at once … or leave. I do not intend to waste my time on hopeless cases." The black eyes found Ramin's brown ones once more, and Martin could feel him stiffening slightly in his chair beside him.

"Mr Wilkinson," his father said softly, "which potion was I speaking of when I said we would brew truth?"

That was an easy question in Martin's opinion, and Ramin was able to answer it correctly. "Veritaserum, sir."

"Describe it," Professor Snape commanded.

"Describe?" Ramin said, uncertainly. "Well … it forces anyone who drinks it to tell the truth, doesn't it?"

"Oh, very good," Snape said, lips curling, mockery edged all over his voice. "A second-year could have told us as much! What I _meant_, Mr Wilkinson, was the colour and odour of the potion. And in case this phrasing still proves too complicated for you, what does it look and smell like?"

The Slytherins sniggered. Even though Martin wasn't actually touching him, he could tell that Ramin was positively quivering with rage. His hands had balled into fists, and it must have cost him every bit of self-restraint he possessed not to lash out at the teacher.

"I don't know, sir," he said curtly through gritted teeth.

"A pity," Snape replied, eyes gleaming malevolently. "Ten points from Gryffindor, I think." With a final mocking smile at Ramin, he turned away from him.

"Miss Graham?" he asked instead, and one of the Slytherin girls responded, "Veritaserum is a colourless and odourless potion, sir."

"It is," Snape said softly. "Ten points to Slytherin. Copy this down," he added, and Martin, too, dipped his quill obediently into his inkpot, although he, of course, already knew every detail about the properties of Veritaserum.

"Now, turn to page ten of _Advanced Potion-Making _and follow the instructions you find there regarding the Draught of Living Death. There is enough time left for you to complete the Potion in today's lesson. Carry on."

And with that, Professor Snape seated himself behind the teacher's desk and watched them all scrambling to get out their books and ingredients.

Ramin slammed his book onto the table with such force that it gave a loud _thump_ and every face in the room turned for a moment to look at him. Ramin had already opened his mouth furiously, no doubt to voice all his complaints to Martin in a hissed whisper, when he finally looked up and saw Martin shaking his head and raising his eyebrows. _Not now_, he hoped to tell him by this, and, thankfully, Ramin understood. He closed his mouth again, took a deep breath, and turned to page ten of his book. Martin fully understood why Ramin was upset, but he also knew from long-term experience that nothing good would come of losing his temper in front of his father. Ramin had received the treatment reserved for every Gryffindor, and although Martin hated it, there was nothing he could do about it but try and avoid an escalation – and, he thought, making sure that Ramin brewed a good potion.

"Don't think about it now," he hissed out of the corner of his mouth as he was cutting up his valerian roots into perfectly equal-sized pieces. "The essential rule of potion-making is to exclude everything else from your mind and concentrate only on the matter on hand. There are clear instructions for every potion, all you need to do to achieve a reasonable result is follow them. But you need to be exact and precise. Don't let yourself get distracted by anything, just concentrate on what you're doing and nothing else."

"Yeah, well, that's a little hard at the moment," Ramin hissed back, slashing up and down with his knife in an unsteady rhythm and cutting off huge and tiny pieces in turn.

Martin took one look at Ramin's roots and knew it was no good. Turning towards him, he grabbed Ramin's left hand which was holding the knife and stopped it firmly from doing any more damage.

"Stop!" he hissed and looked straight into Ramin's eyes. "At this level, everything needs to fit in Potions. And I mean _everything_. With the mess you made of those roots, you'll never make a decent Draught of Living Death. Throw those away, and start again. There's enough time, you don't have to rush. But you do have to _concentrate_. You can be as angry as you like after the lesson, but not now. Now there's you and the book and the potion and nothing else! Got it?"

Ramin looked at him. For a second, Martin was afraid he would start yelling at him, but then Ramin relaxed, took a deep breath and nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, okay. Thanks."

He gave him a quick smile, then he resolutely chucked the uneven pieces away and got out a new root, which he cut with much more care this time.

Satisfied, Martin refocused his attention on his own potion. He had brewed a Draught of Living Death twice before and had been reasonably pleased with the results, but he was eager to do even better this time. He had an idea that a drop of honey added at the right moment would strengthen the potion's impact, improve the taste and yet reduce the risk of undesirable results such as falling into a lifelong coma or even dying instead of simply falling asleep.

Honey had a balancing effect on quite a few potions, but since it was a wholly unmagical substance, it did not mix easily with all the magical ingredients and could have disastrous effects if added at the wrong time. Martin painfully remembered the time when he had blown up his cauldron while trying to add a drop of honey to a half-finished Wolfsbane Potion that he had tried to make over the holidays. When he had later recounted the incident to his father, he had assured him that he had added the honey only a fraction of a second too early, but that had been enough to ruin the potion. Ever since, Martin had used honey in potions only with extreme caution, but he was sure that he knew exactly when it had to be added to the Draught of Living Death to achieve outstanding results and was determined to try it.

When his potion had turned lilac, he looked over at Ramin's cauldron again, where he was pleased to see that it resembled the smooth, blackcurrant-coloured liquid described by the textbook.

"Very good," he whispered, and Ramin smiled at him, eyes sparkling. When he made to cut his Sopophorous Bean, however, Martin interfered once more. "Crush it with the flat side of your dagger," he hissed while stirring his potion counter-clockwise at an even pace. "It's so shrivelled, see, you wouldn't think there was any juice in it. But you want to extract as much juice as you possibly can, and crushing the bean releases it much better than cutting it up."

"That's not in the book," Ramin replied, checking his copy of _Advanced Potion-Making_. "How do you know?"

"Experience," Martin replied and gave his potion one clockwise stir. "When you've brewed enough potions, you know which means you must use to achieve the ends you want." At Ramin's expression, he added, "Don't worry, two years is plenty of time to get a feel for it. For now, just do as I say."

He did, and his potion immediately turned lilac, too.

"Now, the book says to stir counter-clockwise," Martin continued his instructions. "And it's not wrong, but when you've stirred counter-clockwise several times, you can see that the surface of the potion is still not wholly calm, but fretful. Twitchy. As if the ingredients were not at ease with one another. Can you see that?"

Ramin stared into his cauldron. "No," he said flatly. "I don't see a thing like that."

Martin was not surprised. It took effort and experience to see it, and there were people with a natural gift for potion-making, like himself, for whom it was easier than for others.

"Never mind," he whispered, still stirring his potion, "you will in a few months. But that is always a sign that the ingredients aren't mixed well enough, and that's a problem you can solve either by stirring a lot more, or by simply adding a stir in the other direction from time to time. Always in the same rhythm, though! A potion needs balance. For this one, seven stirs counter-clockwise, then one stir clockwise is just right."

He did not wait to check if Ramin was following his instructions, but turned back to his own potion, which was very pale by now, but not yet as clear as water. He held his breath and kept stirring with his left hand while dipping a needle into a small bowl of honey with his right.

_Fifth time counter-clockwise, sixth time counter-clockwise, seventh time counter-clockwise, one time clockwise – now!_

He held the needle over his cauldron, and just as he had finished the clockwise stir, a tiny drop of honey fell into the potion. He yanked the needle back and watched, as if in slow motion, the honey hovering on the surface for a second, then – it vanished, absorbed by the potion, which instantly sparkled, crystal clear, so much so that he could see every tiny scratch in the bottom of his cauldron.

Beaming, he wiped the needle clean and replaced it in his potion-making kit. The honey had worked _perfectly_. He took out his quill and ink and scribbled _Honey added after the seventh clockwise stir achieves perfect results _beneath the book's instructions to the Draught of Living Death, where he had already added the corrections regarding the Sopophorous Bean and the stirring rhythm. All his Potions books were full of these notes; he liked to write down any changes he made in the making of potions so he wouldn't need to think of them all over again whenever he re-brewed one.

As he was carefully cleaning his knife of any stains of the Sopophorous Bean, he looked over at Ramin's cauldron again and was delighted to see that the potion was almost as pale as his had been before he had added the honey.

"Brilliant," he whispered, and Ramin grinned broadly at him.

"All thanks to you," he whispered back and, for reasons that completely escaped him, Martin felt his face grow hot at those words.

"Just keep stirring now," he muttered, bending low over his cauldron and pretending to be checking his own potion so that he did not have to look into Ramin's eyes, "time's almost up."

Indeed, his father had risen from his seat and was striding through the classroom, looking into every cauldron and turning away from most of them with a look of disgust before informing every student in a scathing voice when and how they'd gone wrong. When he reached their table, he passed over Ramin's potion without comment, which Martin knew to mean that he could find nothing to criticise, and lingered for a moment over his own cauldron.

"Honey," he muttered, so softly that only Martin could hear him, "after the seventh clockwise stir?"

Martin nodded, and felt a wave of happiness at the fierce pride in his father's eyes.

"Your best yet," he said, and left Martin beaming, glowing with elation at his father's praise.

"The time is up," Snape said when he had reached the front of the classroom again. "You will all hand in a flask of your potion to me and, as homework, you will write an essay about the correct way to brew a Draught of Living Death and the dangers it involves if brewed wrongly. On Thursday, you will receive the markings on your potions, and if the result is anything other than an 'Outstanding', you will add to your essay a detailed description of how and why you went wrong, all to be handed in on Monday. Class dismissed."

They all walked up to the teacher's desk and handed in a flask of their potions. As Martin handed in his, his father held him back. "Fill the rest of your potion into a flagon and put it into my store," he said, with just a hint of a smile on his face. "There's no point vanishing a perfect Draught of Living Death."

Martin beamed at him, and, checking at a quick glance that no one else was within earshot, replied with a whispered, "Thanks, Dad!"

His father nodded slightly, and Martin returned to his cauldron and did as he had been told. All the while, Ramin was waiting for him, and when he was finished, they left the classroom together and headed towards the Great Hall for lunch.

Martin waited until they had left the Potions corridor before asking, dreading the answer already, "Well? What do you think?"

Ramin exhaled audibly, and said, after a pause, "Well, he's certainly very … impressive."

Martin grimaced. No one had ever used that word in a positive sense regarding his father's treatment of his students.

"Look, don't be too upset at how he treated you, all right? It was nothing personal. He treats all Gryffindors that way."

Ramin looked at him, eyebrows raised. "Is that supposed to be an excuse?"

"No," Martin replied hurriedly, "not at all. Just … an explanation, I suppose."

Ramin snorted. Then he said, "Fred, George and Lee did warn me about him last night when I told them I was continuing Potions. I thought they had to be exaggerating, but apparently they weren't."

"No," Martin replied miserably. He loved his father with all his heart, and he had always been the most important person on earth to him, but he had long since given up on trying to find any justification for his father's treatment of all Gryffindor students. "For once, they didn't have to."

Ramin studied him for a moment with his deep brown eyes, then utterly surprised him when a grin flashed across his face.

"Don't worry," he said, in a suddenly very cheerful voice, "I'm not exactly easily intimidated. And I think I can learn a great deal from your father if you manage to keep me in his class long enough. Because you're right, you know – I think he really is a brilliant Potions master."

And with that, he led the way into the Great Hall, throwing the momentarily stunned Martin a cheeky smile over his shoulder.

* * *

Please read & review!

This chapter is based on _Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince _by J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, London 2005, pp. 174-182.


	5. Chapter Four - The New Teacher

Chapter Four – The New Teacher

* * *

They all arrived early for their Defence Against the Dark Arts class after lunch, full of anticipation for Moody's first lesson. When their teacher finally opened the classroom door, everyone hurried into the room to find decent seats. Unlike Potions, nearly everyone in their year seemed to be continuing Defence Against the Dark Arts to N.E.W.T. level. Martin was not surprised – after all, if he himself was allowed to continue with only an 'Acceptable' in his O.W.L., everybody who had likewise scraped a pass in that exam was obviously permitted to continue as well.

When all the students were finally seated, Moody took out a register and began calling out their names, his magical eye fixing upon each student as his or her name was called. When Moody arrived at Martin, he raised his head and fixed him with a penetrating stare from both of his eyes.

"Snape," he growled, in a tone that made goose bumps erupt all over Martin's skin. "You're Professor Snape's son then, are you?"

"Yes, sir," Martin replied, very uncomfortably aware of Moody staring fixedly at him. He knew exactly what Moody was seeing – with his pale face that was made to seem even paler by the black hair framing it and his rather large nose, he was the image of his father. Only his eyes were different, green flecked with black, whereas his father's were pitch black.

Moody considered him for a few seconds, then gave a noncommittal grunt and returned to his register. Almost every face in the room had turned momentarily towards Martin, and as he glanced at his classmates out of the corner of his eye, he could see many smirking and sniggering faces. It was obvious that they were delighted that Moody apparently had no more love for his father than they had. Ramin, however, was not smirking, and as he, too, noticed the gleeful atmosphere in the room, he bent towards Martin and whispered: "Don't mind them. They're all just jerks."

Which lifted Martin's spirits considerably, since Ramin would have had every reason to openly dislike his father as well after today's Potions lesson. That he was instead showing him moral support now meant more to Martin than he could say, but he simply responded with a smile and a whispered: "Thanks."

As Moody went further down his register, however, he wondered why their new teacher seemed to dislike his father so much. Could it possibly have anything to do with him being an ex-Auror? Martin knew that his father had once, a long time ago, been accused of being a Death Eater, but had been cleared of all charges. Was it possible that Mad-Eye Moody, who was rumoured to see conspiracies lurking behind every corner these days, suspected his father of still being involved with the Dark Arts?

The proper start of the lesson snapped him out of his train of thought, however.

"I've had a report from Professor Lupin about you," Professor Moody growled, his magical eye still racing around the room. "It seems you covered a great many Dark creatures last year, but you hardly touched on curses. Is that correct?"

There was a murmur of assent.

"Well then, it would seem it falls to me to bring you up to scratch with them. And I should warn you right at the beginning, you're in the sixth year now, so expect no careful treatment anymore. You're old enough to see the worst now – those who can't deal with it are free to leave." He leered at them, which twisted his face into an even more grotesque shape than it was already.

Martin swallowed nervously, unsure what Moody meant by "the worst" and even less certain whether he wanted to find out. Most of the others, however, had leaned forward eagerly in their seats, taking in every word of Moody's with bated breath. This time, as Martin realised at a quick glance to his right, Ramin was no exception.

"So – curses," Moody continued, in an almost business-like voice. "There are a great many ways for wizards to make each other's lives very uncomfortable, but there are three Dark curses the Ministry considers to be most severe of all. The use of any one of them on a fellow human being means a life sentence in Azkaban." He gave them his leering grin again.

"Who can tell me the name of one of these curses?"

Several hands shot into the air, including Ramin's. Moody pointed at one of the Weasley twins.

"Which one are you?" he asked.

"George Weasley, sir," the twin replied, breathlessly. Amused, Martin thought that he had never before heard Fred or George Weasley so eager to answer a teacher's question.

"There's one called the Imperius Curse, sir!"

"Ah, yes …," Moody growled, fixing George with his normal eye while the magical one still spun around the room. "I expect your father told you about that one, did he? Always causes the Ministry a whole lot of work, the Imperius Curse does …"

And he reached into a glass jar on his desk and produced a large spider, at which he then pointed his wand.

"_Imperio!"_

Immediately, the spider rose onto two of its hind legs, then did a couple of backflips before scuttling madly from one side of Moody's desk to the other. Some students laughed, but many, including Martin and Ramin, didn't.

"Just imagine it was you under that curse," Ramin muttered, and Martin was sure that many of his classmates were thinking along the same lines.

"Total control," Moody said softly as the spider began running around in circles, on and on and on around the glass jar. "Complete submission to another wizard's will, see? Not impossible to fight, but very, very difficult. Requires real strength of will and focus, too … we'll try it this year, but I'd be very surprised if more than three or four of you succeed, so you'd better avoid being put under the Imperius Curse altogether. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" he barked suddenly, and the whole class jumped.

"Right," Moody said, when he had put the spider back into the jar. "Who knows another curse?"

Ramin's hand shot into the air again, and Moody gestured towards him.

"Yes, Mr …"

"Wilkinson, Professor," Ramin replied eagerly, but not, Martin thought, as overexcited as George Weasley had been. "There's the Cruciatus Curse, sir."

"Indeed there is," Moody answered, in a voice so soft that Martin, who was sitting in the back of the classroom, had to strain to hear it. "Special favourite of many Death Eaters, that one."

And he fished another spider out of his jar, pointed his wand at it and said loudly: "_Crucio!"_

The spider rolled onto its back and began twitching back and forth, rolling over from time to time, as though trying to free itself from very tight bondages. Martin could tell that, although he was sitting quite a long way away, that the spider was in excruciating pain. He was appalled, disgusted, horrified, yet something kept him gazing, transfixed, at the spider. Unbidden, the thought of how agonizing a person's screams must be if tortured by the Cruciatus Curse came into his head, and with a shudder, he wondered how anyone, even a Death Eater, could willingly inflict that much pain upon a fellow human being.

Nobody was laughing now. The whole class was staring at the spider, which continued to writhe in agony, then, quite suddenly, it lay still. Moody had withdrawn his wand and was now looking at the students, his normal eye staring at them hard and calculating.

"Pain," he said in a low voice, "pain such as you have never known. There's no way to fight it, either. The only way to offer resistance of some sort is refusing to give the Death Eaters the information they want from you … and precious few can manage that."

The whole class seemed to be holding its breath, staring up at Professor Moody. Martin thought he knew what had to be coming next, though he dreaded even to think about it.

"And the last one," Moody said, his magical eye sweeping over the students. "Who can tell me the name of the last curse?"

That was an apt name for it, Martin thought, as Cedric raised his hand two rows in front of him and said, in a voice no more than a whisper: "Avada Kedavra, sir."

"Yes," Moody replied, his voice no louder than Cedric's. For a moment, the whole class stared at him, unblinking, torn between fear and a queer sort of anticipation in view of what was going to happen next. For a few seconds, there was complete silence. Then Moody directed his wand in one fluent movement at the spider once more, and bellowed: "_Avada Kedavra!"_

The whole class flinched as one as the spider rolled over onto its back once more, but this time, there was no twitching, no cringing. It simply lay completely still, and, quite plainly, dead.

"The killing curse," Moody said into the silence. "No way of blocking it. No way of defending yourself except trying to dodge it … and good luck with that against a Death Eater." He laughed humourlessly. "Only one person in living memory has ever survived it, and nobody knows how. If an Avada Kedavra is directed at you, it's time to say _goodbye_."

Martin stared at Moody, wondering if that was supposed to be a joke. If so, Moody certainly had a very odd sense of humour.

"So, why am I showing you all this if there's no defence?" He leaned forward at his desk, his magical eye no longer whirring around erratically, but instead wandering from one face to the next along with the normal one. "Because _you need to know_. You need to know what's out there, waiting for you. You need to know what the worst is, what Death Eaters will come at you with, for you to have even the remotest chance of defending yourself. You need to know what to expect when you're facing the Dark Arts." He leered at them again, his face twisting grotesquely. "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" he bellowed, and everybody jumped once more.

"So," he continued, suddenly in a very business-like voice again, and some of the tension seemed to drain from the room. "How _do _you defend yourself against these curses? Well, the best way is to avoid having them cast at you at all. Every one of these so-called Unforgivable Curses requires a very intense focus of mind, which only the very best are able to bring up in the middle of a duel. So, when you find yourself in a situation in which you're duelling a Death Eater, it's best to make sure that he doesn't have any time to muster enough willpower to throw an Unforgivable Curse at you. Have you had any practise in duelling so far?"

A few students gave nods. They had started duelling practise at the end of last year with Professor Lupin, but hadn't got very far. Martin's insides contracted uncomfortably at the thought – he truly was an abysmal dueller.

"Good," Moody growled, "that means we can proceed to advanced duelling practise. In a wizard's duel, the most important thing is to always keep your opponent so busy deflecting your own curses that he doesn't have any time to fire curses at you in turn. An essential element of good duelling, therefore, is the usage of non-verbal spells. Can anyone tell me why?"

Moody pointed at Alicia Spinnet, who answered: "Your opponent doesn't know what spell you're about to use, which makes it harder for him to deflect the curse!"

"Correct!" Moody barked. "And, most importantly, it keeps him right on his toes, trying to determine which spells you're throwing at him. So, I want you all to divide into pairs and try to disarm each other – _only _disarm, mind you, this room is too small to have you collapsing petrified all over the place – without saying a word. Block the jinxes your opponent casts at you, also without speaking. Go on now, we haven't got all day." And with a wave of his wand, the desks flew out of the way and settled themselves neatly along the back wall of the classroom.

Nervously, Martin stood up and turned to face Ramin, who already had his wand pointing right at him with an expression of total concentration on his face that, Martin thought, wouldn't exactly have made matters worse in Potions class, either.

"Ready?" Moody growled, and Martin hastily pointed his wand at Ramin, trying to focus on the task at hand. But while Ramin was clearly eager for Moody to give the go ahead, Martin's palms were already sweaty and he swallowed nervously. He had not shown any talent whatsoever for duelling during last year's classes, and while he _could _cast a reasonable Disarming Charm, he had never even attempted to perform any magic without saying the incantation aloud. He would much rather have tried it with something very simple like _Lumos _first, and preferably in an empty room instead of in a classroom packed with students. But there was nothing for it, he'd simply have to do his best. He looked into Ramin's eyes, trying to bring up the determination that Martin was sure was necessary for him to succeed.

"Go!" Moody barked, and before Martin could even think the word _Expelliarmus_, there was a flash of red light, and he felt his wand being ripped from his hand and saw it flying through the air. Ramin caught it, a broad grin on his face.

Martin stared at him, stunned. No one else had managed to produce so much as a spark without saying the words aloud. Many students had turned toward them at the flash of light and were staring at Ramin open-mouthed, torn, Martin suspected, between envy and grudging admiration.

"Very good, Wilkinson," Moody said appreciatively, and Ramin beamed.

"Come on now, keep trying," Moody growled to the rest of the class, and everyone quickly turned back to their opponents. As Moody began walking from pair to pair and giving instructions, however, Martin noticed that his magical eye remained fixed on Ramin.

"Come on, you can do it, too," Ramin said cheerfully, apparently oblivious to Moody's close supervision.

"How did you _do_ it?" Martin asked. It had seemed the easiest thing in the world, but for the life of him he could not imagine himself ever performing a non-verbal spell with equal ease.

"I dunno exactly," Ramin replied, shrugging. "We started practicing non-verbal magic last year already, and somehow I could just do it. I think it's a matter of concentration, though."

Martin nodded. He was inclined to agree, though that did not help him one bit.

"Try it again, come on," Ramin said encouragingly. "You disarm me this time."

Martin nodded, took a deep breath and pointed his wand at Ramin again. _Expelliarmus!_, he thought with all his might.

Nothing happened.

_Expelliarmus!_, he thought again.

Nothing, not even a spark of red light.

_Expelliarmus! Expelliarmus! ExpelliARMUS!_

No matter what he did, whether he shouted the incantation in his head or whispered it: his wand simply refused to listen. He tried to put everything else out of his mind, to permit nothing into his consciousness but that one, simple word. But no matter what he thought, no flash of red light would burst from his wand. He just stood there, foolishly, his wand pointing at Ramin, his lips pressed together to stop himself from muttering the incantation aloud, eyes narrowed in concentration, yet nothing whatsoever happened.

After thirty seconds of fruitless efforts, he lowered his wand.

"It's no use," he said, trying to keep the frustration out of his voice. "I can't do it."

"Yes, you can," Ramin replied bracingly and walked over to him. "You just need a bit more practise, is all. Look." And he placed himself directly behind Martin, so close that Martin could feel his breath on his right ear. "You're facing your opponent" – Martin stared at the classroom wall, trying to imagine a Death Eater standing there, which was somewhat difficult because the sensation of Ramin touching his back seemed to draw all his attention, for some reason – "you draw your wand" – Ramin grabbed Martin's right arm and raised it – "and you think" – it took Martin a second to realise what he was supposed to do now; Ramin's hand on his arm had sent a tingling sensation all over his skin. When his mind returned to the task at hand, he quickly thought _Expelliarmus! _once more, but yet again to no avail. He just stared straight ahead, at the imaginary Death Eater who would, had he existed, surely have killed him by now.

Ramin kept his hand on Martin's arm for a few seconds, then drew away from him, frowning. "Huh," he said, clearly unsatisfied with his lack of success at teaching. Martin, who was both intensely relieved and a tiny bit disappointed that Ramin was no longer touching him, watched him with slight amusement. He was sure Ramin was not going to give up on him quite yet, no matter how hopeless he seemed to be at non-verbal duelling.

"When you think _Expelliarmus_, how do you do it?" Ramin asked, frowning intensely at him as though he was staring at a particularly intriguing potion.

"What do you mean, how do I do it?" Martin replied, puzzled. He just thought the word the way he always thought, didn't he?

"I mean, do you think it sudden and aggressively, like you would cast a spell, or do you think it slowly and neutral, as if you were using the word in a conversation?"

Martin frowned, trying out both options in his head. "Sudden, I think. Don't you?"

Ramin nodded. "Definitely sudden. I think it exactly the way I'd say it, all at once and with full force. The only difference to verbal spells is really that I don't say the incantation aloud."

"Well, that's sort of the point, isn't it?" Martin asked, frowning at this very trivial piece of advice.

"Of course," Ramin replied, "but the _whole_ point is that it doesn't make any difference whether or not you say the words so long as the willpower in your head stays the same. So just try again, okay? Do it exactly as you would normally, just don't say the incantation."

Martin sighed, still far from convinced that Ramin's advice would help him, but he tried it again all the same.

When the bell rang to signal the end of the lesson, however, he still hadn't managed to produce so much as a spark. Ramin, on the other hand, had disarmed him four more times, as effortlessly as the first time, and Moody had awarded him twenty points for this outstanding performance. Several others had succeeded in casting non-verbal spells, too, but Moody still told them all to practise non-verbal duelling until the next lesson. The students all filed out of the room chattering excitedly, and Martin and Ramin joined the flood of students rolling towards the Great Hall for dinner, where Ramin seated himself with Martin at the Hufflepuff table as though it were the most natural thing in the world. While eating, they talked about the Triwizard Tournament, and John and Edward soon joined in the conversation. Cedric, though he said very little, was listening, too, and Martin could tell that he was glowing with anticipation. Yet again, he felt a twist in his stomach as he realised that Cedric really was going to enter the Tournament. But the fact that Ramin had sat next to him in both of today's lessons and had now even chosen to eat with him instead of with his fellow Gryffindors at his own house table made him so happy that it quickly distracted him from any apprehensions about the Tournament. And so he talked and laughed with his friends until it was time to leave the Great Hall and tackle some homework.

"Shall we start the Potions essay?" he asked Ramin as they headed out of the Great Hall. Ramin stared at him as though he had suddenly grown a third eye.

"We don't have to hand that in 'til _Monday_," he replied, incredulously.

"Yes," Martin answered, raising his eyebrows at his friend, "and until Monday we have four more days of lessons, on all of which we will receive more homework. So unless you want to spend the entire weekend in the library, we'd better start now."

Ramin grunted and muttered something like "goddamn rationality," but Martin could tell that he wasn't really put out, and he did accompany him to the library, where they spent the rest of the evening writing the essay for his father. It was demanding as always, but very interesting, at least in Martin's opinion. When they were finished, it was almost nine, and they quickly gathered up their things and hurried out of the library.

"Good night," Ramin said, grinning at him. "I better hurry, or Filch'll put me in detention because I'm not in my common room. See you tomorrow!" And as quick as that, he had vanished around a corner.

"See you!" Martin called after him, lingering for a moment on the threshold and looking at the spot where Ramin had just disappeared. Then he started towards his own common room, an absent-minded smile on his lips.

How wonderful it was to have a best friend.

* * *

Author's note:

Thank you for reading, I hope you liked it! You'd really make my day if you leave a review and tell me what you think :)

This chapter is based on _Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire_ by J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, London, 2000, pp. 186-192 and _Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince _by J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, London 2005, pp. 169-170.


	6. Chapter Five - Forebodings

Chapter Five – Forebodings

* * *

_There's so little I know that I'm longing to know of the man that you were in a time long ago_

_There's so little you say of the life you have known_

_Why you keep to yourself, why we're always alone_

_So dark, so dark and deep the secrets that you keep_

* * *

On Friday after dinner, Martin descended the steps into the dungeons and made his way towards his father's rooms. "Mellon," he said, after making sure that no one else was around to hear, and he heard the familiar soft _clink_ing sound of the door unlocking itself.

"Speak 'friend' and enter," he muttered under his breath, grinning. It had been he who had suggested that password, and his father had agreed. Both of them loved books in general and Lord of the Rings in particular, and besides, it was very fitting: his father was, and had always been, also his best friend – though perhaps that had changed, now that he had met Ramin.

Once inside, he put down his bag and hung his cloak on its hook, for even though his father's rooms were underground, they were always comfortably warm. A fire was blazing merrily in the living room's fireplace, and over in the potions lab there were usually one or two cauldrons simmering over a fire, too.

He stuck his head through the door to the lab and found his father standing over a cauldron, staring intensely at its contents. Martin caught a whiff of the delicious smells of old books, fresh baked chocolate cake, strawberries and spring rain, and knew immediately that it was Amortentia his father was brewing.

"I'm here," he said, and without so much as glancing at him, his father replied: "Set up the board. I'll be there in a minute."

Martin went back into the living room, fetched the chessboard and pieces and placed the board on the table in front of the fireplace. The pieces he simply emptied onto the board – they would arrange themselves, he knew. Then he looked around the room, searching. _Where have they gone off to?_

Finally, he spotted what he was looking for and walked over to the bookshelf, where Hector was stretched out lazily across several dusty Potions volumes.

"Taking your beauty sleep, are you?" he asked, grinning, while lifting up the black-and-blue snake and putting it around his neck. Hector opened his yellow eyes and stared at him as if to say: _Do I look like I need it, buddy?_

He didn't, of course. Though always outshone by his brother Achilles, who was red-and-orange, Hector was an impressive sight and he knew it.

"Arrogant prick," Martin told him as he sat down on the sofa and looked around for Achilles, but couldn't find him. "I suppose I'll have to make do with you then, won't I?" he said and smiled down at Hector, who flicked his tongue at him, slithered down his left shoulder and made himself comfortable around his forearm.

Martin grinned and leaned back. He loved snakes. They had always fascinated him, and as a boy he'd spent hours pouring over books, trying to find out how to become a Parselmouth so that he might speak to them in earnest. It had taken him a long time to accept that it was impossible to learn the speech of snakes, you were either born to it or not. He had always been jealous of those rare witches and wizards who _were_ able to talk to snakes, and had hardly been able to believe it when Harry Potter had revealed himself a Parselmouth in front of the whole school two years ago. Most students had been aghast at this, he had simply envied Harry. He knew, of course, that snakes were frequently associated with the Dark Arts, but Martin thought that was absolute rubbish. Just because Salazar Slytherin had happened to be a Parselmouth, that did not automatically make all snakes Dark creatures and all Parselmouths Death Eaters. Harry, he thought, surely was the best example for that.

Ever since he could remember, Martin had wanted to have a snake, and he had begged his father to get one until, finally, on his eleventh birthday, his father had yielded to his endless pleading and given him two young snakes, and he had named them Hector and Achilles. They lived with his father when he was at Hogwarts because students were not allowed to have snakes as pets here, and so he only got to see them once a week, but that was fine. Like most snakes, Hector and Achilles spent their time sleeping, occasionally eating and generally minding their own business and much preferred to be left well alone, but every Friday evening, they graciously allowed Martin to pick them up from whatever shelf, drawer or ledge they were stretched out upon and put them around his neck, where they then made themselves comfortable again and simply continued to sleep. Martin did not at all mind their lack of activity. He simply enjoyed the feeling of their movement against his skin, their whole body nothing but muscle, their skin smooth and cool. It was quite unlike any other sensation, and somehow it always calmed him down and helped him think clearly, which was, he reflected, particularly helpful when he and his father were playing their weekly game of chess. Martin almost always lost, yet it seemed to him that he gave his father a better fight when Hector or Achilles was draped around his arm, but maybe that was just his imagination.

He looked up as his father entered the living room, closing the door to the potions lab behind him.

"Have you seen Achilles?" he asked as his father sat down opposite him.

"Lately he's taken to hiding in empty flasks and vessels," he replied, "preferably the ones nearest to the fire."

Martin grinned. "I'd do the same if I were a snake, I think."

"I'm sure," his father replied with a dry smile. "Doing nothing but sleep and eat and always being comfortably warm – just your idea of a perfect life, isn't it?"

"Isn't it anyone's?" Martin answered, grinning.

His father gave a noncommittal grunt, but the corners of his mouth were twitching. "Go on and play, then, if you can find a place for chess in that perfect life of yours," he said, and Martin obligingly ordered one of his pawns two steps forward.

"How was your first week?" his father asked, while sending his own pawn to meet Martin's.

"Fine," Martin replied. "A lot of work already, though. N.E.W.T. classes are much more demanding than the O.W.L. ones, that's for sure. Come on, you, C3," he added, urging on one of his knights, who was a complete coward.

"Naturally they are," his father said. "You're being prepared for jobs now, and if that were easy there'd be something very wrong with our educational system. How are you getting on with non-verbal spells?"

Martin's spirits sank. He'd hoped to avoid that subject, for a little longer at any rate. "Not very well," he muttered, not quite meeting his father's eyes. "I just – I can't seem to be able to get my head around it. Not yet, anyway."

His eyes remained fixed on the chessboard. He wasn't afraid of his father's reaction because he never got angry with him if he did badly in school. His father knew he was doing his best, and that was enough, he said. Nevertheless, Martin hated to disappoint him. He knew his father was an extraordinary wizard, but all he seemed to have inherited either from him or his mother was a talent for Potions.

"Martin," his father said, and the gentleness in his voice made him look up into his father's warm dark eyes. "Don't worry. You have plenty of time to master it. It's simply a matter of focus, and once you've got it once, you've got it forever. You'll learn, and before you know it, you won't even think about it anymore."

"I guess," Martin muttered, feeling slightly heartened at these words. "Ramin promised to help me, and he's brilliant, so I suppose I'll manage it one day."

His father's eyes narrowed slightly. "That Gryffindor boy who weaseled his way into my class?"

"He wants to be an Auror, Dad," Martin said defensively. "He needs Potions for that."

His father snorted. "An Auror. Of course. The brave, valiant, chivalrous heroes of Gryffindor all want to become Aurors to save the world from monsters, dragons and Dark wizards. The noblest of ambitions, fit only for gallant Godric's heirs." Scorn dripped from each and every one of his words.

"That's not fair, Dad," Martin protested. "Ramin's _brilliant_ at Defence Against the Dark Arts and Transfiguration, and he was the first of all of us to perform a non-verbal spell. He just did it, totally effortlessly. And his potion was better than either of the Slytherins', and Kenneth's as well. He's not …" _Not as bad as you want him to be_, he thought, but knew better than to say it. "… not bad," he finished. "You gave him an 'E' on his Draught of Living Death yourself."

His father's eyebrows vanished in his thick black hair. "So I did … and very well done, I must say. He certainly knows how to listen to you, even if he knows nothing whatsoever about Potions."

Martin didn't flinch. He had not believed even for a second that his father had not _noticed_ that he'd been helping Ramin. "I didn't even _touch_ his ingredients," he pointed out. "He did everything himself. I just gave him a few pointers, that's all."

"And those _few pointers_ were everything it took to transform an abysmal potion into one above average," his father replied, fixing him with his dark eyes.

"Well, that only goes to show that Ramin's not _that_ untalented at Potions, doesn't it?" Martin said rather cheekily, before quickly giving the conversation a new direction: "Anyway, I promised to help him with Potions, and in return he'll help me with Defence Against the Dark Arts … and I suppose Transfiguration, too, by the look of things."

Professor McGonagall had been very pleased indeed when Ramin had managed to successfully transform his chair into a goat by the end of their first lesson – again without uttering a single word – and had awarded Ramin twenty points for it, which for her really was an extraordinary number. Martin, on the other hand, had simply managed to make some fur grow on his chair's legs and had himself been awarded an extra-large amount of homework. But Ramin had already promised to help him with it, and Martin was very grateful.

"Well," his father said, looking down at the chessboard again and taking one of Martin's bishops with his queen, "with your help, he should be able to achieve sufficient results to remain in the class, even if he couldn't manage a simple Forgetfulness Potion on his own."

Martin supressed a grin; he knew that these words were a promise that Ramin would not be thrown out of the N.E.W.T. class unless his potions were absolutely unacceptable, and, he swore to himself, he'd see to it that they were _not_ going to be.

"Why did you sit with him?" his father asked, looking up at him again. "Did you meet him on the train?"

Martin nodded. "We spent the whole ride together. He's really nice." He smiled at the thought of their time on the Hogwarts Express.

His father studied him for a few seconds, then the corners of his mouth lifted just a fraction of a degree. "I'm glad if you've found a friend. Just don't let him intimidate you by any heroic displays of Gryffindor valour." He sneered slightly at those last words.

Martin shook his head. "You know I wouldn't, Dad. And anyway, Ramin's not the type."

His father snorted in disbelief, but did not contradict him any further.

Martin lowered his gaze to the chessboard and studied it for a while, trying to figure out his next move, when a thought suddenly crossed his mind and he looked up at his father again. "Dad, what do you think of Professor Moody?"

His father's eyes snapped upwards and he asked sharply: "Why? Has he been giving you a hard time?"

"No," Martin replied hurriedly, "not exactly. It's just that … he didn't seem to be overly fond of you, that's all."

His father studied him for a few moments, pondering, Martin guessed, how much to tell him. He knew that, although he was almost of age now, there were many things his father kept from him, things he refused to talk about. Of his father's involvement in the war against You-Know-Who, for instance, he knew only that he had acted as a spy against the Death Eaters, and that he'd afterwards been accused of truly having been one of them, but had been cleared of all charges. Martin did not for a moment doubt his father's innocence, but he still would have liked to know more. Much, much more than that, however, he was curious about his mother. The only things his father had ever told him about her were that she had died shortly after he'd been born, that she had been a very talented, gifted witch and that he had loved her very much.

"Do you miss her?" he had asked once, with all the innocence of his then five years. His father had put an arm around him and drawn him close.

"I miss her every day," he had replied, his voice gentle, but even then he'd been able to detect all the sadness with which he said those words. "But every day, I can see her in you. And that makes it very much better," he'd said, looking at him with his kind warm eyes.

"Really?" Martin had asked, eyes wide. "I'm like my mother?"

"So much that it's almost as if she were standing here before me," his father had replied, and those words had stayed with him all his life and made him proud. Even though he had never known his mother, he knew that if his father had loved her so much she must have been a truly exceptional person. But every time he'd asked his father to tell him more of his mother since, he had refused, telling him that that was all he needed to know, all that was important. After many vain attempts, Martin had finally given up. He supposed that his father must have a very good reason for shutting down about her like this, but he still would have liked to know more. He'd never even seen a picture of her.

"No," his father slowly responded now, bringing Martin back to the present. "I expect he isn't. You see, when … when I was tried after the war against the Dark Lord –"

" – you were cleared," Martin interrupted, to nip any doubts about this in the bud.

"I was," his father agreed calmly. "But there were many people who did not believe I was innocent. As you know, I was a spy for the fighters against the Dark Lord, but many believed me to be a true Death Eater. Mad-Eye Moody was the first among those."

Martin stared at him, open-mouthed. So he'd been right … but it still seemed incredible. "But … wasn't he an Auror?"

"Precisely," his father replied, lips curling.

"But then he must have known you were a spy! You must have given information to the Ministry, to help them fight You-Know-Who!"

His father held his gaze for a few seconds, then shook his head. "No, Martin. No one at the Ministry knew. Nobody knew but Dumbledore."

Martin was stunned. "But ... why?"

"The Dark Lord had his own spies, and the vast majority of those were at the Ministry. Had anybody but Dumbledore known, I would never have been able to deceive the Dark Lord. Dumbledore alone could ensure that my position was safe. After the war, he vouched for me, and he had enough influence with the Wizengamot for me to be cleared. However, Alastor Moody spent the whole of the war hunting and catching Death Eaters. He took that task _very_ seriously. Every Death Eater walking free was a personal failure to him. He never forgot those whom he hunted in those days … and I was one of them. To him, I am still a Death Eater who walked free."

Martin frowned. He understood that the number of people who had known about his father's position had to have been kept at a minimum, but surely Mad-Eye Moody, the most successful Auror of all times, would never have betrayed him to You-Know-Who! And even though he hadn't been told …

"Shouldn't Dumbledore's word have been enough?" Martin asked indignantly. "He was the leader of the fighting against You-Know-Who! If he said you were innocent, why didn't everyone believe him?"

His father gave him the hint of a smile. "Dumbledore is famous – or should I say, infamous – for his belief in giving everyone a second chance. Many people say his one great weakness is that he trusts too easily. Moody, however, is the exact opposite. Unforgetting, unforgiving, forever mistrustful. Once he has you marked as a Death Eater, there is no redeeming yourself in his eyes. That is why he isn't, as you so elegantly put it, _overly fond of me_."

Martin scowled. He greatly disapproved of putting people into different boxes at a glance and then never taking them out again. "That's not fair," he said. "Dumbledore trusts you. He should, too!"

This time, his father really did give him a smile. "It's not important," he said. "So long as you don't mistrust me, I'm fine."

Martin laughed. "Of course I trust you, Dad! I always will!"

His father continued to smile. "Thank you, Martin. But whatever Professor Moody may think of me, it does not concern you. So if he ever bullies you, or makes any kind of accusation against you, refer him to me and I will give him a piece of my mind."

"Thanks, Dad," Martin grinned, "but I doubt that'll be necessary."

"I hope so," his father replied. "But even so, just bear it in mind."

Martin nodded. Then he thought of something else, something that had been the sole topic of conversation of Tuesday's breakfast when the story had made its way around all four house tables.

"Professor Moody also shouldn't have turned Draco into a ferret," he said indignantly. Everyone else had roared with laughter at the story, because Draco had never given most of the students any cause to feel particularly friendly towards him, and they had gloated at his humiliation. But even though Martin, too, didn't like Draco very much, he was still his father's godson and they sometimes visited the Malfoys in the summer holidays. He'd even occasionally helped Draco with Potions. But he disapproved of Draco's arrogance and particularly his prejudices against Muggle-borns. Even so, in transforming Draco into a ferret and humiliating him in front of the whole school, Professor Moody had clearly overstepped the mark. Professor McGonagall, for instance, would never have done a thing like that. "Of course Draco shouldn't have tried to curse Harry while his back was turned, but –"

"Potter should not have turned away so quickly," his father interrupted him sharply. "He should never have let his guard down when it was obvious that his opponent was angry enough to try to curse him."

Martin said nothing. His father had never shown a Gryffindor student any affection whatsoever, but for some reason completely unknown to Martin, he truly despised Harry Potter. At the beginning, Martin had tried to defend Harry – he didn't know him very well, but he'd always seemed nice enough to him – but after a while, when he had realised that all his efforts were fruitless, he'd simply taken to keeping silent whenever his father criticised Harry. His father knew, of course, that Martin was uncomfortable with the topic, and they had reached a sort of silent agreement not to discuss Harry Potter anymore. Sometimes, though, his father seemed to be unable to restrain himself.

Now, after a few moments of uncomfortable silence, his father exhaled and said, in a deliberately calm voice: "I'm sorry. What where you going to say?"

"Just that even though Draco shouldn't have cursed Harry, Professor Moody still shouldn't have humiliated him like that. He did it deliberately, even though he knew it was forbidden, he said so to Professor McGonagall." Ramin, who had heard the story from Fred and George, who'd gotten it from their brother Ron, who'd been there, had told him so.

His father's black eyes remained fixed upon him for a few seconds, then he said, quietly: "No. He shouldn't have." Then he glanced down at the chessboard. "Check, by the way."

Martin frowned at the board. He hadn't paid much attention to his last few moves and now realised that his father's queen was threatening his king. Hurriedly, he ordered his king out of harm's way, but after his father's next two moves, he found himself unable to bring his king back to safety.

"Checkmate," his father said, enormous satisfaction in his voice.

Martin scowled. He was used to losing, of course, but he knew he could have played better if he'd concentrated on the game instead of their conversation.

"Not exactly one of your better games," his father chided him promptly. "After I took your queen, you should –"

But he broke off in mid-sentence and, in an involuntary, almost instinctive movement, his right hand closed tightly around his left forearm.

"What is it?" Martin frowned. "Dad?"

His father looked at him, and – was it possible? – it seemed to Martin that, for a moment, there was blank fear in his father's eyes. Then the instant was over, his father released his left arm and said, in a very forced calm voice: "I – nothing. It is nothing." He was very white, and his eyes darted around the room, as if making sure that everything was still in order.

A feeling of intense uneasiness took hold of Martin. What in Merlin's name could have shaken his father like this? His father, who was always in complete control of any situation?

"What's the matter?" he asked again, his sudden fear clearly audible in his voice. "Was it your arm? Did it hurt? What –"

"It's NOTHING!" his father snapped, suddenly furious. Martin flinched at this sharp rebuke. He did not understand. What could possibly have happened?

"I – I'm sorry," his father said, in a much calmer tone now. "It's probably best if you go now, Martin. It's late and you don't want to land yourself in detention." His smile was horribly forced.

Martin opened his mouth to ask again what on earth was wrong, but at the look in his father's eyes he thought better of it, nodded, disentangled Hector from his arm and gathered up his things. It was obvious that something bad had happened, something that had caught his father completely off guard, and Martin didn't want to press him until he'd had some time to deal with whatever it had been.

But after he'd hugged his father goodnight and departed for his dormitory, he still couldn't put the image of his father's white face and his suddenly wary eyes out of his mind. Something had shaken him, and it had surprised him so much that he hadn't been able to conceal it. Whatever it had been, it had frightened his father. And that was enough to frighten Martin, too.

And what in Merlin's name could his father's left forearm have to do with it? He must have felt something there, a sharp pain or something, otherwise he wouldn't have seized it like that, as if in reflex. But there wasn't anything unusual about his father's left forearm. Or was there?

Suddenly, a memory came to Martin. Long ago, he couldn't have been more than eight or nine years old, he'd surprised his father while he was putting on his robes, and he had seen something rather odd on one of his father's arms. He could not now remember whether it had been the left or the right, but in view of what had just happened he felt sure that it must have been the left. There had been something on his father's arm, a faint drawing or other, some kind of marking_. _He hadn't been able to make out its exact shape because as soon as he'd walked in, his father had shrugged on his robe and concealed it, but he was sure that there had been something there. He hadn't given it much thought at the time, but it now occurred to Martin that he had never seen the marking again after that. He supposed that his father must have been using a Disillusionment Charm to keep whatever it was concealed.

So was that what had happened? This thing on his father's arm had hurt and he hadn't expected it? But that still didn't explain why it should have shaken him so much. Obviously, the marking must have some kind of meaning to his father, but Martin just didn't have the slightest idea what it could be. He tried to convince himself that it couldn't possibly be anything too serious, but even after he'd gone to bed and closed the hangings of his four-poster around him, he couldn't shake off the horrible feeling of dread that had taken hold of him. He found himself thinking of some other strange things that had been happening just lately – the Death Eaters at the Quidditch World Cup, walking around committing crimes as boldly as if You-Know-Who had been walking right alongside them. And then, hadn't there been some witch who'd disappeared over the summer, a Ministry of Magic worker called Betty Johnson or something like that? And now something had frightened his father.

He lay there awake for a long time, trying to convince himself that the incidents had nothing whatsoever to do with one another, but the more he thought about it, the stronger his certainty became: the only thing that could have frightened his father like that was something to which he attached a great deal of significance, something which he really believed could be a threat to him, some very powerful Dark force.

Martin's throat suddenly became very dry when he realised that the only thing he could think of that fitted that description was none other than You-Know-Who himself.

* * *

Author's note:

The quotation at the beginning is taken from the musical _Les Misérables_ by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg, based on the novel by Victor Hugo, Lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer.

Thank you to all readers, I know you're there and I hope you enjoyed it! However, I had hoped for a little more feedback when I started uploading this story, because I already know that I like my story, and I want to know what you think of it. You must also feel free to criticise, any feedback about my writing helps me to improve. So please just take five minutes and write a review, you'd be doing me a huge favour!


	7. Chapter Six - Defying Gravity

Chapter Six – Defying Gravity

* * *

_And someone told me lately_

_Everyone deserves the chance to fly_

* * *

The next morning after breakfast, Martin and Ramin walked down into the grounds together and settled themselves in a quiet spot by the lake. Ramin had his broomstick with him and had only replied with a mischievous grin and a "You wanted to fly, didn't you?" when Martin had asked him why. The thought of flying filled Martin with a nervous anticipation, but he'd lain awake half the night thinking about what had happened last evening and he'd been so anxious to talk to Ramin about it that he couldn't concentrate on anything else before he'd explained to Ramin in every detail how and why something seemed to have frightened his father. Martin had debated with himself whether he should even tell Ramin about it – he was quite certain his father would have preferred it if he'd remained silent – but the whole thing was such a weight on his mind that he'd simply had to talk to someone. And anyway, Ramin was his friend, and Martin was sure he could trust him.

When Martin had finally recounted everything that had happened in his father's rooms and his own concerns that it might be connected in some way to the events at the Quidditch World Cup and the disappearance of the Ministry witch, Ramin stared thoughtfully at the lake for a few moments before answering.

"He grabbed his left forearm?"

"Yeah," Martin replied anxiously. "It was like he'd felt a sharp pain there all of a sudden. I'm sure it must have been that marking there, but I just have no idea what it could be or why it suddenly hurt. I'm sure it's never happened before, or at least not for a long time, or he wouldn't have been so taken aback."

Ramin looked at him with knitted eyebrows. "And you think that it has something to do with Voldemort?"

Martin jumped so hard that he almost fell off the boulder they'd sat down upon. "You … you say his _name_?" he asked, staring open-mouthed at Ramin.

His friend rolled his eyes. "Come on, Martin. It's so ridiculous the way everyone here calls him _You-Know-Who _or _He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named _or some crap like that. What do you all think will happen if you say his name? He's gonna jump out at you or something?" He laughed. "I just think it's so much easier just to call him Voldemort."

Martin flinched again. He couldn't help it. In all his life, he'd only ever heard the name spoken aloud once by his father, back when he'd told him about the war, and by Dumbledore, who was, like in so many other things, simply weird that way.

"But … don't you feel at all uncomfortable, saying the name? I mean, doesn't it sort of feel like … you bring on his presence, or something?"

Ramin stared at him, then laughed out loud. "His presence? How? Like a sudden gust of cold wind and red eyes gazing at me from the depths of hell?" He shook his head, still smiling. "Nah. I think he's still out there somewhere, but I don't believe he can be summoned like a house-elf, appearing out of nowhere whenever I call." He grinned again. "Would be kind of cool though, wouldn't it? _Voldemort, write me my Charms essay. Voldemort, make me my dinner. Voldemort, kill Filch for me._"

Martin stared at Ramin, wondering if his father wasn't right after all and all Gryffindors were a bit insane. On the other hand, he couldn't help a little grin spreading across his own face, too. Ramin certainly was very different from anyone else he'd ever met before. But … _good _different, somehow.

"To answer your question," Martin said, returning to their original subject, "yeah, I do. I mean, I don't see how, because he hasn't come back or anything, has he? He's still powerless. But … I just can't think of any other thing that could've frightened Dad like that. Because he isn't really afraid of anything, you know? But the war … he never really talks about the war. So I guess if he's afraid of anything, it must be something to do with that. And what else could it be but You-Know-Who?"

"I don't know," Ramin said slowly. "And I have no idea what some marking on his forearm could have to do with it, either. But … if you're right, if Voldemort really _is _getting stronger …"

His voice trailed off, and he gazed at one of the arms of the Giant Squid rising out of the water. "That would also explain why Moody's here, wouldn't it? He's not exactly your typical teacher, but if Dumbledore wanted extra protection for his students, then Moody's perfect. He and Dumbledore together – even Voldemort would think twice of attacking a place with protectors like that."

"You're right," Martin gasped. This hadn't occurred to him before, but now that Ramin had said it, Martin was sure he was right. Even though there probably hadn't been a great number of applicants for the Defence Against the Dark Arts position, given its history, the selection of the ex-Auror Mad-Eye Moody was a very eccentric choice that really only made sense if Dumbledore had wanted him to take the job precisely _because _of his former occupation. Then, he thought of something else. "What about the Tournament then, though?" he asked Ramin. "If You-Know-Who's somehow gaining power, how can Dumbledore have agreed to host it this year?"

Ramin frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Just think! The Tournament will be a perfect excuse for a lot of people to come to Hogwarts, and how can we possibly know they can all be trusted? I've read that the Dark Arts are actually _taught _at Durmstrang, for instance, and if You-Know-Who wants to have a spy or something here at Hogwarts, the Tournament will be an easy way of getting somebody in here without arousing suspicion. Or he might send someone to kill Dumbledore, or Harry Potter!"

Ramin stared at him. Then he burst out laughing.

"What?" Martin asked, thoroughly bewildered by this reaction. "Do you think this is funny?"

"Come on, Martin," Ramin said when he'd calmed down, "you sound like Moody!"

Martin's mouth fell open. "I do not!"

"Yes, you do," Ramin grinned. "You see conspiracies everywhere you look! Your father grabs his left forearm, and you jump to the conclusion Voldemort must be behind it. Now you're afraid the Tournament will somehow give Voldemort the chance to assassinate Dumbledore or Harry. You're adding two and two and making fifty-three, don't you see? Perhaps your dad once splashed some nasty potion onto his arm and it still burns from time to time. Maybe a snake bit him there, or a Hippogriff, or maybe someone hit it with a Reducto Curse or something. There could be _tons_ of explanations."

"But the way he jumped, as if –," Martin began indignantly, but Ramin cut across him.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, and with your father I'm not saying you're wrong in thinking it's more serious than that, but to link the _Tournament_ to Voldemort? It's just a competition, an event! It's gonna be great meeting all those students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, and the tasks are gonna be such a blast! We'll all have an amazing time, supporting the Hogwarts champion! Such a shame that I can't enter …," he added wistfully.

Martin looked at him, knowing that Ramin had expressed exactly the kind of anticipation that every student but him was experiencing at the moment. Ramin met his eyes expectantly, but Martin still couldn't shake the feeling of anxiety that took hold of him every time the Tournament was mentioned. He knew his worries had little reasonable grounds, however, and therefore simply mumbled: "I just have a bad feeling about it, that's all."

Ramin considered him a moment, then laughed again. "You're not exactly an optimist, are you?"

"No," Martin admitted. "I suppose I'm not."

"Well," Ramin grinned, and his eyes took on that mischievous sparkle again. "As it happens, I have just the thing to cheer you up." He patted his broomstick affectionately with one hand. "Time to fly, badger-boy!"

Martin swallowed. He looked at the broom and experienced a rush of anticipation and longing, but also couldn't suppress the bitter memory of his one and only broomstick-ride so far, back in his first year at Hogwarts, when he'd been the first to fall off his broom and had been the butt of his classmates' jokes for a whole week after that. Even now, he could still hear the laughter ringing in his ears, but this was Ramin, his _friend_, and he was sure he wasn't going to laugh at him. Still, what if he tried and failed as spectacularly as the first time? He'd already made a complete fool out of himself because he'd been unable to master non-verbal spells so far, and he didn't want Ramin to think that he was an idiot who could neither cast a decent spell nor fly. On the other hand, if he refused to fly, wouldn't Ramin think him a coward? And wouldn't he be right?

He stared at the broom. He'd wanted to be a Quidditch star ever since he'd first read _Quidditch Through the Ages_ and he had let himself be discouraged by his classmates' teasing once before. Now, Ramin was giving him another chance. Did he really want to throw it away? As soon as he asked himself that question, he suddenly realised that the answer was easy: he'd always wanted to fly, and here was a friend offering him a ride on his broomstick.

"Okay then, I'll do it," he said and vigorously hoisted himself off the ground.

Ramin beamed. "Of course you will!"

Martin took a closer look at Ramin's broom as they were making their way up towards the Quidditch pitch. It was a handsome, slender model, and the wood seemed to emit a faint golden glitter that sparkled in the sunlight. At the handle, an artfully crafted "M" was engraved into the broomstick. Although Martin regularly read _Which Broomstick_ and never went to Diagon Alley without visiting Quality Quidditch Supplies, it was not a model he had ever seen before.

"What sort of a broomstick is it?" he asked Ramin.

"It's a Meraxes," his friend explained. "It's an American model, named after an ancient monster that's supposed to have haunted all of America once with its two brothers. It has excellent acceleration and a brilliant top speed, but it's not very robust and gets knocked off course easily. So you should avoid clashes with opponents or being hit by Bludgers," he grinned.

The Quidditch pitch was mercifully empty. For the first time, Martin was glad that the inter-house Cup was cancelled this year and that there were no team practices, so that Ramin and he were quite alone.

"Right," Ramin said and held out the Meraxes. "Off you go."

Martin stared at him. "Pardon me?"

"Well, take it and fly," Ramin said, rolling his eyes and grinning. "That _is _why we're here, isn't it?"

Martin swallowed, then nodded. He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but he hadn't thought he'd simply grab the broomstick and kick off. He didn't want to chicken out, however, and gingerly took the broomstick from Ramin's hands. It felt light and smooth in his fingers, but also terribly fragile. Did he really want to trust it with carrying his weight?

"Come on," Ramin said cheerfully. "It won't bite!"

_Right_, Martin thought, his heartbeat quickening as he swung his right leg over the handle. He grabbed the broomstick tightly with both hands, bent his knees slightly and tried not to remember the last time he'd been in this position and the disastrous result of that attempt.

"Just push off very slightly," Ramin instructed him, and his voice calmed Martin down a little. "You'll just hover in the air for a few moments, then when you lean your upper body forward, you'll touch down again."

Martin nodded, swallowed, and then, after a deep breath, pushed off. He felt his feet leave the ground, and for a heartbeat his body was supported by nothing but the broom, hovering in mid-air. Then, even though Martin could have sworn he'd done nothing at all, he felt a violent jolt, and the next thing he knew, he was lying spread-eagled on the ground, the broomstick now hanging completely still in mid-air.

He scrambled to his feet, his cheeks burning. He couldn't bear to meet Ramin's eyes and instead fixed his gaze upon the broomstick, which didn't look at all magnificent anymore, but arrogant and mocking all of a sudden. Had it had a voice, Martin was sure it would have laughed at him.

Ramin, however, didn't laugh. "Damn broom," he swore, and when Martin chanced a glance at him, he was not trying to suppress a commiserating smile, but frowning angrily at the broomstick. "It doesn't usually do this kind of thing! I'm really sorry."

Martin smiled. He just couldn't help it. It was so sweet of Ramin to blame his broomstick, to even _apologise _to him when he must know perfectly well that the broom was not the problem.

"It's not it, it's me," he felt obliged to explain, even though he couldn't believe he was actually _defending_ the stupid thing now. "It was like this last time. I don't know why … I just don't have any talent for riding a broomstick." He tried to keep the defeat and bitterness out of his voice, but couldn't quite manage it. "I think I'd better just leave it alone, Ramin."

"Nonsense!" his friend protested. "_I_ don't have any talent whatsoever for Potions, but I can still learn it, can't I?"

"Of course you can," Martin conceded, "but this is different. It's –"

"How?" Ramin interrupted vigorously. "It's a skill, isn't it? Just like potion-making. If I could learn to make a Draught of Living Death that forced your father to give me an 'E', you can learn to fly!"

Martin wanted to protest, but it was obvious from his whole manner that Ramin absolutely was not going to take no for an answer. And so he mounted the Meraxes three more times and tried to be more relaxed upon it, as Ramin repeatedly advised him, but he still didn't manage to stay on the broom for even a second longer than the first attempt. Silently, he admitted to himself that Ramin was probably right and that it was his lack of relaxation that was the problem, but no matter how much he tried, he simply couldn't bring his body to relax upon that broomstick. His muscles stayed tight as a bowstring, and the broom kept throwing him off. After he'd landed in the grass for the fourth time, Martin hoped that Ramin would finally admit defeat. Instead, his friend decided to take a different approach.

"That potion … I never would've been able to do it by myself, you know. You helped me. And now I'm going to help you."

"But you _are _trying to help me," Martin said wearily. "It's just that I'm too stupid to do what you say."

"No, Martin," Ramin said, shaking his head. "This has nothing to do with stupidity. This is about some kind of block you developed over the years, and now we're going to break it."

"How?" Martin asked hopelessly. "I've tried and tried and nothing's come of it! You saw it! I'm hopeless and that's all there is to it."

"Of course you're not!" Ramin insisted heatedly. "And I'm gonna show you. Hop on." And he mounted his broomstick.

Martin stared at him open-mouthed. "What?"

"Hop on!" Ramin repeated. "You won't have to do anything but sit there and hold on to me. Close your eyes if that makes it easier, but otherwise, just _relax_. I'll do the rest. I promise, you'll be perfectly safe. You'll see that the broom won't drop you, and afterwards you'll be much more easy-going about the whole thing."

Martin swallowed nervously. "Are you sure this is gonna work?" he asked, suddenly not only nervous about flying but also for some reason terrified of sitting so close behind Ramin that he could _hold on to him_.

"Sure I am!" Ramin said confidently. "Come on!"

His heart racing in his chest, Martin lowered himself onto the broomstick. He laid his hands timidly on Ramin's waist, but his friend immediately grabbed them and pulled them properly around his waist, so that he was practically hugging Ramin.

"Hold on tight!" he said cheerfully, and before Martin could utter a final request not to include any loops or Wronski-Feint-like dives, Ramin pushed off hard.

They rose high into the air, soaring toward the goalposts at one end of the stadium. As he saw the stands whizzing past in the corner of his eye, Martin caught his breath and tightened his hold around his friend's waist. The wind was rushing through his hair, his robes were billowing out behind him from the force of wind and speed. Never before had he stayed upon a broomstick more than two seconds flat, never had he been higher up than a bare metre. All this time, he'd only dreamed of flying properly, of soaring through the air upon a broomstick responding to his every move, chasing after the Snitch while a vast crowd was cheering wildly.

This, however, surpassed even his wildest dreams.

He was flying, and he was _free_. A fire was burning in his chest, a joy so vast he could not contain it, and it burst out of him in a wild laugh that he hadn't thought himself even capable of uttering. His eyes hungrily drank in the scenery that was flying past, the goalposts, the stands, then the greenhouses, so impossibly tiny that it seemed like he could have reached down and squashed them with his index finger. The wind was roaring in his ears, and it sounded like the most glorious music. And although he wasn't playing Quidditch, although it wasn't his commands the broomstick was responding to and although it was not a handle his hands were grasping, but Ramin's waist, he found that it did not matter. Because the fact that all this wasn't so, that he wasn't by himself up here, that Ramin was with him was what made the joy complete. His friend's laughter reached his ears, every bit as wild and happy and exhilarated as his own, and soon they were whooping together, shouting and laughing and owning the world. Ramin's body radiated warmth, which made a pleasant contrast in the cold biting of the wind. His shoulders were broad, and the fact that Martin was clutching his waist was what made him so sure, so utterly and completely certain that, although he was high, high in the air with nothing but a slender broomstick to support him, he was totally and entirely safe. He knew he could trust Ramin to bring him back down into the real world safely, and until then, he could enjoy the newly found freedom and exhilaration to its fullest extent. When Ramin went into a dive, Martin screamed and pressed his face tightly into Ramin's robes, which smelled of grass and coco, but when he felt Ramin pulling out of the dive and shooting up into the air again he laughed and laughed and shouted "Again!" into his friend's ear.

When they finally touched down again, Martin couldn't have said how long they had been in the air. It might have been two minutes or an hour, but one thing Martin was quite certain of: this was surely the _only _way to fly.

With a feeling of regret, Martin unlocked his hands from around Ramin's waist and they got off the broomstick.

"Well?" Ramin asked breathlessly, strands of hair hanging into his eyes, his cheeks red from cold and exhilaration.

"I …" Martin couldn't think what to say. "Thank you," he finally managed, still catching his breath and not quite believing what he had just done. "I … never thought it would be like this."

Ramin beamed at him, his brown eyes sparkling. "And you know the best thing? You were completely relaxed almost the entire time! Next time, I'm sure you'll be able to do it by yourself!" And he shouldered his broomstick and set off for the school.

_That's a pity_, Martin thought, as he hurried to follow Ramin back to the castle for lunch.

* * *

Author's note:

The title of this chapter and the quotation at the beginning are taken from the musical _Wicked_ by Stephen Schwartz (music and lyrics).

I also didn't invent the name of Ramin's broomstick, but it is, of course, a tribute to George R. R. Martin's _A Song of Ice and Fire_ and the three dragons with which Aegon and his sisters conquered Westeros. I'm sure you'll be able to guess what the other two ancient monsters that Ramin mentions were called ;)

As always, I'd love to know what you think, so read and review, please!


	8. Chapter Seven - Guests and Champions

Chapter Seven – Guests and Champions

* * *

On Friday, the 30th of October, Martin was standing between Cedric and Edward and eagerly squinting in all directions, trying to catch a glimpse of the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students. Even though he'd read quite a lot about the Tournament, he wasn't sure what to look for. The delegations from the different schools had never stuck to one fixed means of transport, arriving by Thestrals, brooms, Portkey, Floo Powder or, once, before it had been outlawed, even on a huge flying carpet. Seeing as they were all assembled in front of the castle and a fireplace was nowhere near in sight, Martin ruled out Floo Powder, but otherwise he had no idea how the foreign students were travelling. He had drawn his cloak tightly around himself, for it was a cold evening and even more so because the sun had already set. To his right, Edward was craning his neck eagerly, while Cedric was standing quite still, and only because they were standing so close together that their arms were touching could Martin tell that he was as tight as a bowstring, anticipating the arrival of the students he hoped would be his opponents in due course.

Suddenly something pushed him in the back, and next moment, Ramin had squeezed in between himself and Cedric, grinning at him. "Hey! Seen anything yet?" he asked.

"No," Martin replied, glad to see his friend, but also casting an anxious glance at Professor McGonagall, who was firmly keeping her Gryffindors in line. "Aren't you supposed to be with your own house? What if McGonagall sees you?"

"I'm one student in eighty", Ramin replied, "she won't notice I'm gone. And I'd rather wait with you."

This remark seemed to tie a knot into Martin's tongue, for he found himself unable to reply. And somehow he didn't think that the fact his heart was suddenly beating at twice its regular speed had anything to do with the imminent arrival of the two foreign schools, either.

But fortunately, just then Dumbledore gave a cry of: "Aha! Unless I am very much mistaken, the delegation from Beauxbatons approaches!" and thus rescued Martin from his embarrassment.

"Where?" Ramin called out eagerly, and many students were turning their heads into different directions, squinting into the oncoming darkness. Then, suddenly, Edward raised his arm and pointed towards the sky above the Forbidden Forest. "_There!_" he yelled, and everybody turned to see what he had spotted.

And then Martin could see it, too. At first, it appeared to be an enormous brick-like something, growing larger by the second as it was rapidly approaching the castle.

"It's a dragon," Eleanor, one of the Hufflepuff first-years, shrieked, only to be disagreed with instantly by one of her classmates from Gryffindor, who said: "Don't be stupid … it's a flying house!"

Neither of them had got it right, though the second guess was not bad. As the flying something was illuminated by the light shining out of the castle windows, Martin saw that it was actually a huge carriage, drawn by a score of golden horses almost as big as the conveyance they pulled. There were a lot of "Ahhs" and "Ohhs," and the students in the front rows had to scramble backwards as the horses brought the carriage to a rather bumpy landing in front of the castle gates.

Martin glanced to his left and saw Ramin staring at the whole thing, eyes wide with wonder. "Wow," he muttered, never taking his eyes off the carriage door, which had just opened. A boy jumped out of it and unfolded a set of golden steps, making a gangway from the carriage door to the damp grass of the Hogwarts grounds. And down the stairs came …

"Wow," said Ramin again.

"Pinch me," gasped Edward.

"I didn't know Hagrid had a sister," John said dryly.

He was quite right, Martin thought, stunned. The woman now standing at the foot of the stairs could certainly match Hagrid inch for inch in height. Once he'd got over the initial shock – he was used to Hagrid, of course, but seeing yet another person this huge, a woman at that, had caught him off guard – he took in the rest of her appearance: a stern, but not unkind face, and a very elegant dress.

Dumbledore started to clap, and everyone quickly joined in. Martin watched as Dumbledore and the woman – he addressed her as Madame Maxime – greeted each other very respectfully, and heard Ramin giggle at his side when Madame Maxime announced that "ze 'orses drink only single-malt whisky." Then she and her students disappeared into the castle. Martin envied them slightly, for he was starting to feel the cold even through his cloak. He hoped the Durmstrang delegation wasn't going to be too long. Everywhere around him, students were looking around eagerly again.

"Can you see anything?" Ramin whispered into his ear.

Martin shook his head, but then, over the stamping of the huge horses' hooves, he suddenly thought he heard something else, something that was coming – was it from the lake? Everyone gasped as the noise suddenly grew louder, and then, Lee Jordan from Gryffindor yelled: "The lake! Look at the lake!"

For there was indeed something strange about it: the surface, usually only disturbed by the Giant Squid, had begun to bubble, and next moment, there was something like a whirlpool right in the middle of the water, and out of it rose – a ship, complete with mast and everything, lights shimmering inside it.

"Unbelievable," Ramin muttered excitedly, as the ship came to rest at the lake's bank and people began to disembark. "How do you think that got here? I mean, it can't have _sailed _all the way from Durmstrang, can it?"

Martin shook his head. He, too, had no idea how the Durmstrang students could possibly have travelled in a ship from wherever their school was right into the Hogwarts lake. It was almost like they'd Apparated the whole ship – but you couldn't do that, could you? And anyway, nobody could Apparate right into the Hogwarts grounds. But when the Durmstrang students arrived at the gates and Dumbledore greeted their Headmaster, Professor Karkaroff, he forgot all about their method of travel. For Karkaroff had led forwards one of his students, asking to be allowed into the castle to warm up, and Martin recognised the student immediately. His mouth fell open. Nor was his the only one. Everywhere among the Hogwarts students, excited whispers broke out like wildfire, and down at their end, Cedric was the first to voice the thought that was on every Hogwarts student's mind: "I don't believe it – it's Viktor Krum!"

Martin stared, dumbstruck. Viktor Krum, the hero of this year's Quidditch final, still a student? And this year, for the _whole year_, a guest at Hogwarts?

To his left, Martin heard a short gasp of pain, and realised that Ramin must have pinched himself hard in the arm. "This is even better than I thought it would be!" he beamed, after he'd thus convinced himself that he was not dreaming. "Viktor Krum! This is fantastic! Do you think he'll show us some of his moves if we ask him?"

"I dunno," Martin shrugged, his brain still feeling a bit like it had just been Stunned, "but I bet he'll be Durmstrang's champion."

* * *

As they filed back into the school, everyone was still craning their necks to catch a glimpse of Krum. Martin and Ramin were just crossing the Entrance Hall when there was a sharp voice to their left.

"Detention, Wilkinson!" Professor McGonagall snapped, her lips so thin they'd almost vanished. "And twenty points from Gryffindor! What did you think you were doing, disrupting the welcoming ceremony in this unacceptable manner? Do you think we lined up the students according to year and house for our own amusement?"

Ramin just had time to splutter "Well, I –" before Professor McGonagall continued: "You will come to my office tonight, after the feast, and I will give you your detention! And mind you behave yourself as befits a Gryffindor N.E.W.T. student from now on!"

And with that, she turned her back on them and continued ushering the students into the Great Hall.

Martin felt bad because Ramin had landed himself in detention just because he'd wanted to stand next to him, but he also couldn't help grinning at Ramin's completely aghast expression.

"So much for thinking she wouldn't see you," he said and was relieved to see a helpless grin spreading across Ramin's face, too.

"Never mind," he said as they sat down at the Hufflepuff table. "But honestly, a detention for standing with the wrong house? You English seriously need to take a leaf out of our book where rules are concerned."

"She's Scottish," Martin corrected, but Ramin had apparently already lost interest in complaining about his detention and instead looked hopefully over at the Durmstrang students, who hadn't yet decided where they were going to sit down.

"Over here," he said under his breath, shifting closer to Martin to make room on the bench, but it was too late: Krum and his schoolmates had sat down at the Slytherin table. Ramin looked disappointed, but then he shrugged and said: "Never mind, I guess we'll have plenty of opportunity to talk to him this year." And although there was quite a lot of room on the bench beside him now, Ramin did not edge away from Martin again, so that their knees were touching all through dinner and their elbows kept brushing against each other. Every time this happened, a whole torrent of shivers went down Martin's back, and he was distracted so thoroughly that he hardly even noticed any of Professor Dumbledore's announcements.

* * *

That night, Martin suddenly woke up. It was still pitch black, but he could hear movement and hushed voices whispering outside his four-poster. He wondered if there was something wrong with one of his dorm mates.

Then, from the next bed, he heard Edward's sleepy voice: "Wha's goin' on?"

There was silence. Martin stuck his head through the hangings and saw Cedric and John standing in the dormitory, fully dressed, their faces illuminated by the pale moonlight.

"What're you doin'?" Edward murmured, though Martin thought he knew. And sure enough, after a moment's hesitation, Cedric said, eyes gleaming: "I'm going to put my name in the Goblet."

Edward looked at him with big round eyes, suddenly wide awake. "Wow! Good luck!"

"What about you, John?" Martin asked, frowning. "Are you coming along for moral support?"

"Partly," he grinned mischievously. "And I'm gonna try and put my name in there as well!"

"But you're not seventeen!" Edward gasped. "What about the Age Line?"

John pulled something out of his pocket and held it up into the light. It was a transparent flask containing a crocodile green liquid that Martin recognised instantly. "An Ageing Potion won't get you over that line!" he exclaimed and with difficulty stopped himself from laughing. "Dumbledore is bound to have thought of this!"

John shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe not. Worst that can happen is, I won't be able to cross the line. Got nothing to lose, you know?"

"I wouldn't be so sure," Martin murmured, feeling certain that Dumbledore was sure to have built in some sort of catch, reserved specially for those students who couldn't resist the temptation, despite his repeated warnings not to try to enter if you were under seventeen. He was equally sure it wasn't going to be anything really serious, though, so he, too, wished Cedric good luck and retreated once more into the hangings of his four-poster.

* * *

The next evening, after the feast, Martin was sitting at the Hufflepuff table, tightly wedged in between Cedric and Ramin, who had once again chosen to sit with him rather than with his fellow Gryffindors. Ramin had eaten a lot more than anyone else because he'd been exhausted from spending his whole afternoon rushing around the castle following Filch's directions, polishing suits of armour and scrubbing floors – the detention he'd got from Professor McGonagall. But after four helpings of some of the choicest dishes on the table and three puddings, he appeared to be completely restored and had been chatting more and more animatedly as dinner proceeded. Cedric, on the other hand, had hardly eaten a bite and had grown quieter and quieter, looking again and again up at the Goblet of Fire. Martin could only guess what emotions were battling inside him now. Excitement and anticipation, to be sure. Nerves, definitely. Perhaps a little apprehension, too. Martin's own throat had been getting dryer as the evening progressed as well, and now he could hardly swallow. He stared up at Dumbledore, not knowing what to hope for. If Cedric became school champion, their house, Hufflepuff, would, for the rest of this year, be the number one house in the school, and even though Martin wasn't anywhere near as ambitious about all the various competitions between the houses as many other students, the thought of everyone looking up to their house for a change instead of always stamping on them made him smile. On the other hand, the tasks were bound to be dangerous, and because Cedric was his friend, he would rather he kept out of danger, and therefore out of the Tournament. On yet another hand, the tasks were supposed to be safer this year, and Dumbledore and the other judges surely wouldn't be exposing the champions to serious danger, would they? Would they?

Martin's thoughts were turning in circles, and he wished they'd just get on with the champions' selection, because thinking about whether he wanted Cedric to be chosen or not was seriously doing his head in. And then, finally, the moment was near at hand. The plates were cleared, Dumbledore had extinguished the candles in the Hall, and everyone was staring rapidly at the Goblet, whose white-blue light was now the brightest in the whole Hall. To his right, Cedric had gone rigid as a brick wall, while on his left, Ramin was quivering with excitement. Opposite him, Edward was staring at the Goblet, while John – relieved by Madam Pomfrey of a magnificent white beard he'd sprung after crossing the Age Line – had all his fingers crossed, and his eyes were fixed upon the Goblet as well. The silence was so complete that even Hector's and Achilles's hissing would have been clearly audible.

And then, suddenly, the flames in the Goblet turned bright red, a tongue of flame shot high into the air, and with it, it brought a small piece of parchment. A collective gasp went through the Hall.

"The champion for Durmstrang", Dumbledore called out, "will be Viktor Krum!"

Everybody cheered. Ramin clapped and whooped. Krum got up and shuffled through the door behind the staff table. Next moment, a second piece of parchment shot out of the Goblet.

"The champion for Beauxbatons is Fleur Delacour!"

A silver-haired girl got up and swept past them, her cheeks flushed with triumph. As she passed the Hufflepuff table, John's and Edward's eyes suddenly got a glazed look about them, and they stared after her open-mouthed as she, too, exited the Great Hall. Ramin had apparently noticed this peculiar behaviour, too, because he snapped his fingers under their noses. "Hey! Snap out of it!" he laughed, and after a moment of confusion they both quickly turned back towards the Goblet, rather embarrassed looks upon their faces.

"She must be part Veela or something," Ramin whispered into Martin's ear, still grinning. Martin nodded and he was all of a sudden very glad that Ramin had not been affected by the girl's charms. The next piece of parchment shooting out of the Goblet very quickly took his mind off that, however. This was the moment. He stared at Dumbledore, still torn. Would he? Wouldn't he?

"The Hogwarts champion", Dumbledore called, "is Cedric Diggory!"

He didn't have time to think. And uproar akin to an explosion swept over the Hufflepuff table, as everyone jumped to their feet and started screaming and shouting and clapping, Martin along with them. Cedric had got up as well, grinning from ear to ear, and shaking hands everywhere, he made his way towards the staff table. John was jumping up and down, completely out of control. Edward kept saying "I don't believe it, I don't believe it, I don't believe it," over and over again. Ramin was laughing and clapping. Martin felt rather dizzy. He, too, couldn't quite believe this had really happened.

"Excellent!" Dumbledore said, when they had finally settled down again. "Well, we now have our three champions. I am sure I can count upon all of you, including the remaining students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, to give your champions every ounce of support you can muster. By cheering your champion on, you will contribute in a very real –"

But then, something happened that shouldn't have been happening at all. The feeling that something was about to go very wrong took hold of Martin even before he realised what it was, before he saw the red flames rising once more from the Goblet, and before he saw Dumbledore catching another – a fourth – piece of parchment out of the air, and before he heard him read out what was written upon it: "Harry Potter."

* * *

Author's note:

This chapter is based on _Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire_ by J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, London, 2000, pp. 212-226 and pp. 235-238. Everything Professor Dumbledore says in this chapter, along with several other statements by other characters, is quoted directly and indirectly from these pages.

As always, please read and review!

This week, I discovered Pottermore and highly enjoyed reading all the texts on there that were written by J.K. Rowling herself. I also found some information that is highly relevant for this story, and I made a tiny alteration to chapter one to include the name of Ramin's former school in America. I thought I'd draw your attention to that, just so you're not surprised when it is mentioned again in a later chapter :)

I also have a confession to make: this was the last chapter I had ready to post. I've written several others, but this was the last beta-ed one, and as my beta is busy at the moment, I don't know when I'll receive more corrected chapters. I'd like to continue uploading in the weekly rhythm, though, so I'm looking for a second beta to read over the story before I post it. As a non-native speaker, I mainly need help with grammar, vocabulary and so on, but any opinions on the content are also very welcome. If you'd like to become a beta for this story, please write me a PM :)


	9. Chapter Eight - The First Task

Chapter Eight – The First Task

* * *

Even now, three weeks after the Goblet had spat out the names of four, not three champions, John was still fuming about what had happened. Edward was none too pleased either. Convinced that Harry Potter and Gryffindor house were trying to steal Cedric's glory, they both now refused to sit anywhere near Ramin in lessons and at table, so that Martin was spending less and less time with them. John, taking his preference of Ramin's company to theirs as a personal insult, had stopped speaking to him altogether. He snapped at any Gryffindor student who went near him, and when the Slytherins had come up with their _Support CEDRIC DIGGORY _badges, John had got one and pinned it to his robes at once. Edward had at first seemed reluctant to follow suit, but after the Daily Prophet article that was supposed to have been about the Tournament, but had turned out to be a life story of Harry instead had appeared, Edward had pinned a badge to his chest as well.

Martin, too, had been furious that Cedric hadn't even been mentioned in the article, but unlike John, Edward and almost every other student who wasn't a Gryffindor, he did not blame Harry for this. He'd had a clear view of Harry's face as Dumbledore had read out his name, and was absolutely certain that Harry had not been the one who'd put his name in that Goblet. Even apart from Harry's completely dumbfounded face after he'd heard his name pass Dumbledore's lips, Martin was sure that he would never have been able to fool the Goblet into spitting his name out as that of a fourth champion. Some students who were under seventeen had, after all, _tried_ to submit their names, but all of them had failed, and no wonder, for quite apart from the Goblet's own magic, they would have had to overcome Dumbledore's Age Line as well. No fourth-year student could possibly have accomplished that. Someone else, therefore, must have put Harry's name into the Goblet, and somehow Martin didn't think that it had been to do Harry a favour. Ever since the champions' selection had gone so badly wrong, Martin's feeling of anxiety had increased, and he was now thinking of the Tournament's tasks with an even greater apprehension. He'd tried to talk to his father about his fears, but every time Martin mentioned that moment when his father had involuntarily seized his forearm, his father would tell him in no uncertain terms that it was none of his business, and when Martin attempted to make the point of Harry's selection as a fourth champion being a certain sign that something odd was going on, his father went quite as livid as John, for to Martin's frustration – though not to his surprise –, he, too, was of the firm opinion that Harry had somehow managed to put his own name into the Goblet. When Martin had tried to reason why that couldn't possibly be the case, his father had been deaf to all his arguments, insisting that "Potter is the most accomplished rulebreaker I have ever had the misfortune to meet," and that he must have found some way to "give himself another shot at achieving worldwide fame before completing so much as a single O.W.L." Martin had given up trying to discuss the point with his father after that.

Cedric didn't appear to know what to think. He'd told them on the night of Hallowe'en that Harry had denied putting his name into the Goblet, but he didn't seem sure whether to believe him or not. Anyhow, ever since he'd become champion he'd been surrounded by so many admirers from all years and houses (except for Gryffindor, of course) that he'd hardly had time to think about anything else than his role as champion and the approaching first task.

To Martin's intense relief, however, Ramin had not only listened to him, but had also agreed with him. "Dumbledore drew that Age Line", he'd said, "and none but a really, really powerful wizard could have fooled it. I mean, this is _Dumbledore _we're talking about."

They'd spent hours and hours trying to come up with a reasonable candidate who would have had a motive for putting Harry's name into the Goblet, but the only one Martin could think of, which was no other that You-Know-Who himself, had lacked opportunity, because he definitely couldn't have got into the school, and anyway, he was still supposed to be alone and powerless, and with Dumbledore and Moody here to protect them, Martin didn't see any chance for some sort of associate of his to get into Hogwarts, either. He'd briefly considered whether any of the foreign students might be in league with him, but Ramin had pointed out that the students were all too young to have formed up any sort of ties to You-Know-Who when he'd been powerful, and as for Madame Maxime and Professor Karkaroff, if Dumbledore had suspected them of being on the Dark side, he surely wouldn't have invited them into the school. Ramin hadn't been able to think of anyone else who might have put Harry's name into the Goblet either, and so they'd finally given up discussing the subject.

Instead, Ramin was eager to talk about the first task, which was going to take place this week. Even though Martin got a queasy feeling in his stomach every time he thought about what the task was going to be – Cedric had told them that it was designed to test _their daring and their courage in the face of the unknown_, so Martin was sure it was going to be something dangerous – he couldn't help being at least a little infected by Ramin's great enthusiasm and anticipation. His eyes started to sparkle every time he talked about the Tournament, and there was an ear-to-ear grin on his face when he fantasised about what the champions might be required to do in the first task. Martin never contributed much to these conversations, but he liked listening to Ramin's theories, each one wilder than the last, and he had caught himself smiling every time Ramin was smiling, too – as if his mind were somehow mirroring Ramin's happiness. He had hardly ever enjoyed anything so much as being in Ramin's company. They spent an absolutely wonderful day together on the Saturday before the first task, which was the day of the first Hogsmeade visit this year. Ramin, of course, had never been to Hogsmeade before, and they visited all the shops, spending a lot of time in both Zonko's and Honeydukes, were Ramin marvelled at all the different sweets, especially the unusual tastes. He actually bought a blood-flavoured lollipop and dared Martin to taste it, but he refused point-blank. After trying the lollipop himself, Ramin grimaced and shuddered. "Uh! I don't think I'll be trying one of these again anytime soon," he grinned and threw the lollipop into the nearest bin. Afterwards they went for a Butterbeer in the Three Broomsticks, which Ramin was at first reluctant to try ("England is really the only country that could ever have come up with anything as mad as hot beer"), but after he'd taken a cautious sip, his face slowly spread into a wide smile. He drained the rest of the mug eagerly and said apologetically: "I take it back! This absolutely _has_ tobe imported into America ASAP." After leaving the Three Broomsticks, they made their way back to Hogwarts by way of the Shrieking Shack, and Martin entertained Ramin with all the ghost stories that were being told about it. That night, after he'd closed the hangings of his four-poster around himself, Martin reflected that he had had one of the best days of his life, and even though the first task was now so near at hand, he fell asleep with a smile on his face.

* * *

On Monday morning after breakfast, Ramin started walking down the stairs towards the Potions classroom, but Martin called him back. "We've got Charms this morning, remember? My dad and Professor Flitwick switched because he'll be giving a speech at an International Charms Convention or something on Thursday."

"Oh, right," Ramin replied, and they climbed the stairs leading up to the Charms corridor. Cedric, John and Edward were walking a few metres in front of them. They had almost reached the classroom door when, suddenly, Cedric's bag split and its contents spilled onto the floor, including a few bottles of ink, which smashed and made the mess complete. John and Edward bent down to help Cedric gather it all up, and Martin and Ramin quickly came up to help, too, but Cedric said, exasperatedly: "Don't bother, tell Flitwick I'm coming, go on …"

John hesitated for a moment, then shrugged, gave Ramin a dirty look as though it were somehow his fault, then walked into the classroom. Edward, Martin and Ramin followed. They took their seats – two rows apart from each other – while John spoke to Professor Flitwick. Everyone had just taken out their wands to continue practising the immensely difficult Protean Charm when Cedric entered the room, his arms full of parchments and books.

"Well, go on, Diggory, sit down and get out your wand," Professor Flitwick said jovially.

"I – right. Yes, sir," Cedric replied and hurried to his desk. Something in his voice struck Martin as odd. He looked around and studied Cedric more closely. His face was suddenly pale, and he looked nervous and agitated. When Martin pointed this out to Ramin, his friend looked over at Cedric for a moment, then shrugged and said: "Maybe it's just sort of sunk in that he'll have to do the first task tomorrow and he's got the jitters. Or perhaps there were some love letters in his bag and the ink's ruined them," he grinned and waved his wand over the two watches each of them had been given, then changed the time on one of them, and simultaneously, the time on his second watch altered to mimic the first – Ramin alone had been able to perform a perfect Protean Charm before they'd even started practicing it in class. Martin frowned and watched Cedric for a few more seconds, then he twitched his head irritably to rid it of the dark suspicions that had once again taken hold of him and turned his attention back to his own Charms work.

* * *

And then, the next day after lunch, the moment was finally at hand: the first task was about to begin. Martin had walked down to the forest with the Weasley twins, Lee Jordan and Ramin, because the latter had understandably finally got tired of John's accusing stares every time he was standing near him, and Martin didn't mind who he was with as long as Ramin was part of the group. He had, of course, wished Cedric good luck beforehand, who had been extremely pale and had merely nodded his thanks. Martin didn't blame him – even though he himself was not participating in the Tournament, he, too, had a bad case of nerves and his stomach churned with anxiety as he swept his gaze through the space that was enclosed by the stands he was now sitting in, trying to catch a glimpse of anything that might give him a hint of what the champions were going to have to do.

"Can you see anything?" he muttered to Ramin, who was squeezed in next to him and was also craning his neck.

"No, nothing," he replied, but then, suddenly, Ludo Bagman's voice filled the enclosure.

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! Students, teachers and judges – our champions have been informed of their job, and the first task of the Triwizard Tournament can therefore BEGIN! The champions will have to collect the golden egg! Mr Diggory, if you please!"

Martin tried to swallow, but couldn't. Cedric was going to be the first of the champions to try and _collect the golden egg_, whatever that meant. And then, at precisely the same moment as Cedric appeared at one end of the enclosure, clutching his wand and his face a very nasty shade of green, a huge gate was thrown wide open at the opposite end of the enclosure, and behind it appeared – a collective scream went through the stands, its tone a mixture of excitement and horror.

Martin did not scream. He just stared at the dragon as it roared and flapped its huge, blue-grey wings. For a moment, he thought he must surely be hallucinating. Then, that there had to be some horrible mistake.

He grabbed Ramin's arm and clutched it tightly. "That's a dragon!" he squeaked, his voice coming out an octave higher than usual. "Someone has to go and get Cedric out of there!"

Ramin's mouth had been hanging slightly open as he gazed at the dragon, but now he blinked and turned towards Martin.

"He'll be fine," he said and grinned reassuringly, but even his voice had a touch of anxiety to it. "I'm sure there're … dragon-keepers close by, or something."

"_Dragon-keepers_?" Martin replied, his voice still shrill with desperation. "If that thing bites Cedric's head off, or grills him, or rips him open, there won't be _anything_ the damn dragon-keepers can do!"

Ramin returned his desperate look with a half-smile and a shrug. When Martin realised that he was not going to come up with some miraculous solution to this whole horrible situation, he turned away from him, and his eyes swept the stands until he found the teachers and the judges' panel, but none of them seemed to be doing anything to get Cedric out of danger, either. Unbelievable as it was, this, then, must really, _seriously _be the first task of the Tournament. After all the talk of taking every measure to assure the champions' safety this year, the first task was to fight a _dragon_. Martin couldn't even find adequate _thoughts_ to express his horror. Each of the four champions could _die _today.

Had Cedric known? Yesterday in Charms, when he'd suddenly looked so nervous, had he somehow learned what the task was going to be? If so, it was a miracle that he'd only been pale when Martin had wished him good luck. If it had been him, Martin believed he would have snapped completely, run away or hidden or something. Never, ever would he willingly have walked into this enclosure to fight a dragon. Desperately, Martin looked down at Cedric, not really wanting to see what was going to happen at all, but at the same time unable to turn away.

Cedric was staring at the dragon, rigid and unmoving. He seemed temporarily frozen to the spot. Then the dragon roared again, and with the deafening sound came a surge of blazing fire, shooting straight at Cedric. Martin clapped his hands over his eyes and watched through his fingers – as Cedric dived aside, narrowly avoiding the flames. A collective gasp went through the crowd as Cedric scrambled to his feet and faced the dragon again. This move seemed to have shaken him out of his state of shock, however, and Martin saw how he pointed his wand, not at the dragon, but at a nearby rock. Martin couldn't hear the incantation Cedric yelled, but next moment, the rock was gone, and in its place was a dog, turning its head this way and that, apparently in some confusion. As soon as it smelled the dragon, however, it crouched down and began to back away slowly. As it did so, Cedric moved at an equal pace into the opposite direction. Martin, still watching through the gaps between his fingers, realised that Cedric's plan must be to offer the dragon a choicer piece of meat than himself and make it go for the dog instead. Holding his breath, Martin watched the dragon fearfully, waiting to see how it was going to react. As he was looking at it, he also noticed that it was standing over a clutch of eggs, and one of them emitted a faint golden glitter.

The dragon seemed to hesitate for a moment, then it turned its ugly head towards the dog and roared at it. Martin released his breath with shuddering relief, but as long as the dragon didn't move away from the clutch of eggs, Cedric still wasn't any closer to getting the golden one. The dog backed away, snarling and snapping at the dragon. The blue-grey beast continued to watch it, but made no move towards it. Cedric stood motionless, waiting for the dragon to move. Then, suddenly, the dog let out a loud, aggressive bark – the dragon roared back at it, and – Martin's fingers dug painfully into his cheeks – it made two rather clumsy steps forward on its huge, misshapen feet, snapping at the dog. Cedric dived forward. Martin thought it was a very daring move to rush towards the eggs as soon as this, since the dragon was still standing a mere foot from them, but on the other hand, Cedric had no way of knowing whether the dragon was going to move any further away. This might be the best chance he was going to get.

Martin screamed and cheered Cedric on with the rest as he dashed towards the eggs. The dragon was still snapping at the dog, but then, quite suddenly, as though the roar of the crowd had somehow given it a warning, it seemed to remember that the dog was not the only threat to its eggs in the enclosure. It twisted its massive head around, saw Cedric, who was now only three steps away from the eggs – and released a huge blast of fire at him.

Martin let out a desperate scream. For a moment, Cedric vanished from his sight, hidden behind the sudden gust of flame, and Martin was terrified of seeing Cedric's burnt body lying on the ground when it cleared. But then – from the opposite stands, a terrific roar went up, and a second later, Cedric came into view, still on his feet, and in his hands the golden egg. It took Martin a few seconds to realise what this meant – Cedric had made it. He'd got through the first task. He had seized the golden egg, and he was still alive.

Martin jumped to his feet, clapping and stamping and cheering with the rest as a score of wizards rushed into the arena to restrain the dragon. Martin was laughing and crying at the same time, there were tears streaming down his face. Next to him, Ramin put an arm around his back, laughing. Martin pressed his face into Ramin's shoulder for a moment, taking deep breaths to calm himself down. It was over, it was done. Cedric, at least, was safe.

Then, as some of his nerves ebbed away, he suddenly became aware of what he was doing: cuddling up against Ramin, who was practically hugging him, out here in the stands, for the whole school to see.

He hastily straightened up again, his face feeling very hot. But as he glanced surreptitiously around, he saw that nobody appeared to have noticed the two of them, as everyone's attention was still fixed on Cedric, who was now being ushered out of the arena by Madam Pomfrey. Martin's heart skipped a beat. Was Cedric hurt?

"Did anything happen to Cedric?" he asked Ramin, who didn't appear to have noticed Martin's embarrassment.

"I think the fire hit him in the face or something," his friend replied casually, but on noticing Martin's horrified look, he added: "It's all right! It can't be bad or he wouldn't have been able to walk out of here on his own two feet!"

Not altogether reassured by this, Martin comforted himself with the thought that Cedric was now being attended to by Madam Pomfrey, and that she would surely be able to heal any injury he might have received.

Breathing more freely by the minute, Martin smiled as he wondered how Cedric was feeling right now. He hoped he was proud and happy, he knew he'd also be immensely relieved that it was all over. For him, at any rate – for Bagman had just blown a whistle, and Martin saw the Beauxbatons champion, Fleur Delacour, walking into the arena. Feeling a little anxious again – he'd worried most about Cedric, but he didn't want any of the other three champions to die, either – he watched as first Fleur, then Viktor Krum, and finally Harry faced their dragons and eventually succeeded in getting their egg. Martin was particularly impressed by Harry's way of beating the dragon: he summoned his broomstick, a state-of-the-art Firebolt, out of the castle towards him and got past his dragon in the air. Ramin yelled admiringly next to him, quite obviously delighted at Harry's flying skills. Martin also noticed that the Gryffindors all around him weren't the only ones cheering Harry on. All of the Ravenclaws seemed to have decided to support Harry in his moment of peril as well, and many Hufflepuffs and even a few Slytherins joined them in screaming encouragement at him, too.

When the last marks had been awarded and all the dragons were safely back in the dragon-keepers' control, Martin and Ramin started to walk back up to the castle together. They had barely left the enclosure when they heard John's voice behind them.

"Oi! Wait a minute!"

Martin smiled. He'd been hoping this would happen, and he was very pleased. Still, he concealed his grin as he turned around and looked at John with a completely neutral expression on his face. Edward and Cedric were with him. Cedric's face was half covered in an orange paste to treat his burn, but he was beaming, and in his hands he was holding his golden egg.

"I want to apologise," John said when they'd caught up with them. "To both of you. I realise now that whether or not Potter put his own name into the Goblet, it wasn't your fault. I shouldn't have stopped talking to you."

He looked them straight in the eye and held out his hand. Ramin took it without hesitating. "That's okay. I mean, it was a bit of a shock for everyone when Harry's name came out of that Goblet, right?"

"Yes", John replied very seriously, "but my reaction was totally inappropriate. I'm really sorry."

Edward nodded. "Yes, me too. We should all have stuck together and supported both Cedric and Harry."

"Well, most people did that today, no matter what they felt to begin with," Ramin said as he shook Edward's hand.

Martin, too, shook hands with both Edward and John, but when John looked him in the eye, he held his gaze and said, very determined: "Harry did _not _put his name in the Goblet, John. I saw his reaction when he was chosen, and he could not possibly have crossed the Age Line or fooled the Goblet into spitting out a fourth name. It's just impossible, you _must _see that."

John looked for a moment as though he was going to argue, then he shrugged. "Whatever." And with a sideways glance at Cedric, he added: "You know what? You're probably right, because after today, I reckon anyone who put their name forward for the chance to be killed by a dragon must be a complete nutcase!"

They all laughed, and Cedric got his own back by retorting: "Who was it again that grew a great, white beard after being so desperate to enter the Tournament that he drank an Ageing Potion?"

John gave a mocking bow, and they all set off towards the school together, laughing all the while.

* * *

They had a big party in the Hufflepuff common room that night, for even though Cedric was only in third place, he was merely two points behind Harry and Viktor Krum, who were tied in first place, and that was nothing. Besides, Martin was so relieved that Cedric had got through the task in one piece that he would have felt like partying even if Cedric had received zero points from the judges. While Cedric showered, the rest of them all worked together to turn the common room into a party hall. The seventh-years conjured up some yellow and black balloons and bewitched them to zoom through the air above everybody's heads, changing colours all the while and giving off a shower of sparks whenever two of them banged into each other. Melissa, one of the girls in their year, brought over her wireless from her dormitory and put together a collection of songs from the Magical Music Mall that was accessible through the WWN, the Wizarding Wireless Network, then amplified the sound so that it filled every corner of the room. John took over the food supply, enlisting the help of several enthusiastic first- and second-years to carry it all from the conveniently located kitchen into the common room.

"Met Fred and George," he grinned when he returned, his arms full of jam tarts and chocolate eclairs. "Looks like we're not the only house throwing a party tonight."

"You do surprise me," Martin smirked. "Have you got the drinks?"

John nodded. "They're coming now."

Sure enough, the three first-years Eleanor, Owen and Kevin were staggering towards them, their faces completely hidden by large casks of Pumpkin Juice, Butterbeer and – for the students who were of age – Firewhisky they were carrying. Martin hurried over and relieved Kevin, who had looked as though he'd been about to collapse under the weight, of his cask.

"That's too heavy for them, John," he said reproachfully, but John was already directing a couple of second-years towards a few tables that had been pushed together to make a buffet and was no longer listening. Martin sighed, then put down the cask and had Eleanor and Owen place theirs beside his.

"Thanks, you three," he said, smiling down at them. "Go and see if John has another job for you, all right?"

Eleanor and Owen hurried off, but Kevin looked up at him eagerly and asked: "Can't I stay and help you?"

"Of course you can," Martin replied, smiling, and was about to turn back towards the casks when he saw Edward coming towards them, carrying a big box containing several bottles of different-coloured liquids.

"Put them right here, Edward," he grinned, indicating a spot on the table in front of him.

"Right," Edward replied, also grinning. He put down the box, then pushed his sweaty blond curls out of his eyes as he looked around the room. "Looks like we're ready to roll. I'd better go and get Cedric. It's all yours, Martin." And he disappeared through the door to the boys' dormitories.

Martin lined the bottles of juice up on the table and explained to Kevin what each of them contained and which of them fitted best together. As the best potion-maker in the house, he was in charge of the drinks. Mixing cocktails was not quite as much fun as brewing potions, because it was about a hundred times easier, but the results were generally much more tasty and far less dangerous, and on a night like tonight, he was simply glad that he could do his bit in turning this into a truly memorable evening for all Hufflepuff students.

Kevin and him were soon joined at their table by the fourth-years Susan Bones and Justin Finch-Fletchley, and they began mixing drinks in several large bowls and then filling them into glasses. Everyone could help themselves from the table, though Martin did keep a sharp eye on those glasses that contained Bludger Blast, the main ingredient of which was Firewhisky. "Hands off," he said sternly to third-year Zacharias Smith, who scowled and put down his glass again.

When Cedric entered the common room, the orange paste removed and not a trace of a burn left on his face, everybody cheered and clapped. Melissa stopped the music with a wave of her wand, so that everyone could congratulate Cedric without having to shout. Cedric grinned in a rather embarrassed sort of way and waved at all the cheering students. Food and drinks were pressed into his hands from every side, and every single student seemed to want to shake his hand or clap him on the back. A couple of excited first-years, Kevin among them, wanted autographs on their schoolbags and parchments. As Cedric granted all of these wishes, Martin thought that this was probably not unlike the way the Irish Quidditch team had been welcomed by their fans after the final against Bulgaria. _Cedric, the hero_, he thought, grinning. He played the part well, though, and after having fought a dragon, he deserved every bit of admiration he was getting, at least in Martin's opinion.

"Well done, Cedric! Third place, and just two points behind the first, that's not bad at all!" someone shouted from the back of the room.

"_Second_ place," a seventh-year immediately corrected contemptuously. "We _don't_ need to count _Potter_." He pronounced Harry's name as though he were something very slimy and disgusting. Several people shouted their agreement, but Cedric's voice rang louder than all the others.

"_No!_" he shouted, raising his hands in a gesture that clearly said _stop_. "Harry's all right, okay? Just leave him alone."

There were several dismayed exclamations from the crowd. Martin, too, was surprised. Cedric had never joined in the nastiness against Harry, but he had never before spoken up to defend him, either.

"He tried to steal your glory, Cedric!" Kyle Dawson, a fifth-year and a member of the Quidditch team, called out.

"Don't you think he put his own name into the Goblet, then?" Hannah Abbott, who was in Harry's year, asked, frowning.

Cedric took a deep breath. "I don't know," he said slowly and deliberately. "But it doesn't matter, okay? Harry's a Hogwarts student, just like me and just like you. It'd be great if either of us wins. So just support him, all right? Like you support me." He smiled a little nervously.

There was some dissatisfied muttering among the students, but everyone could see that Cedric was serious, and the Hufflepuffs were not about to deny their hero any request if he really meant it. Martin was delighted, but he still couldn't help wondering what had brought about this change of mind. It was almost as though Cedric felt that he owed it to Harry to try and stop the Hufflepuffs from bullying him. But why? What could Harry have done for Cedric? Martin wracked his brain for a couple of seconds, but when he couldn't think of an answer, he thought that perhaps the danger all four of the champions had been exposed to today had made Cedric see that there were more important things than a contest between two houses.

After a couple of seconds of muttering and a somewhat uncertain silence, Ernie Macmillan, another classmate of Harry's, called out: "Where's the golden egg, then, Cedric?"

The cry was immediately taken up by other voices.

"Yeah, bring it here, Cedric!"

"Come on, open it! Let's see what's inside it!"

At first, Cedric appeared reluctant. Martin suspected he was unwilling to cheat; the champions were supposed to work out the clues on their own, after all. But it was obvious that the students were not going to take no for an answer. In their corner of the common room, Kyle and the other fifth-years started a chant of "Open, open, open!" that was instantly taken up by everyone else in the room. Soon, the floor of the common room seemed to shake from eighty chanting voices and eighty pairs of clapping hands and stomping feet. Martin watched from one side of the room as Cedric's face split into a helpless grin at all these students cheering just for him. He said something to John that was impossible for Martin to make out over all the noise, but John grinned, nodded and vanished through the door leading to their dormitory, only to reappear moments later, holding the golden egg in his hands. The crowd let out an appreciative roar as John passed the egg to Cedric, who raised it high above his head. Then, the chant died down, and a silence crackling with excitement descended upon the common room. Martin, too, held his breath as Cedric dug his fingers into the egg and opened it.

An ear-splitting noise filled the room. Martin clapped his hands over his ears, but that did not do much to block out the sound. It was a sort of high-pitched wailing, like a woman with a screechy voice screaming very loudly. Several others were covering their ears with their hands as well, and Cedric had almost dropped the egg in surprise when it had started screaming, but had regained control of it just in time and now slammed it shut again.

Silence returned to the common room, but the excitement had drained out of it and had been replaced by a considerable degree of confusion.

"What was that?" Hannah asked, rubbing her ears.

"That's supposed to be a clue?" Zacharias Smith said, a slight sneer in his voice. "What's it supposed to tell you? That you're gonna have to comfort a woman mourning her dead husband or something?"

"It sounded a bit like the cry of a Mandrake to me," John said, frowning. "Maybe you'll have to re-pot them, Cedric!"

"John, the only people who actually _know _what the cry of a Mandrake sounds like are in no condition to tell us," Edward sighed, rolling his eyes. "And we re-potted Mandrakes in our _second _year in Herbology. After a dragon, I doubt that's gonna be challenging enough to be a task, don't you think so?"

John huffed, but didn't say anything else. Cedric frowned down at the egg, then looked up at the puzzled faces all around him.

"Well," he said, with a slightly forced grin, as though making a deliberate effort to relax the situation, "I guess this is gonna take some mulling over, huh? They can't make it too easy for us. But I'm sure I'll work it out." There were some cheers and appreciative hoots from the students. Apparently heartened by this, Cedric's grin widened. "Not tonight, though," he continued, and his grey eyes were sparkling. "I just want to celebrate tonight! So everybody grab a butterbeer and let's party all night long!"

A roar of delight swept through the room, and Martin couldn't help but admire Cedric's crowd control as Melissa turned the music back on and he returned, grinning, to mixing more drinks.

* * *

Author's note:

This chapter is based on _Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire_ by J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, London, 2000, pp. 246-316. Cedric's exasperated remark to his friends after his bag split outside the Charms classroom is quoted directly from the same source, p. 298.

The last scene of this chapter was not beta-ed by a native speaker. I apologise for any mistakes that you may find and ask you to alert me to these mistakes, so that I can correct them. I'm still looking for a native speaker to beta this story, and I'd be so grateful to anyone who's willing to help me!

I am, however, very grateful to my new beta HeyItsMe2000, who is German, just like me, but whose corrections still helped me a lot :)

This was a very long chapter, which I think calls for very long reviews ;) But the old proverb about the beggar and the chooser tells me that I can't afford to be picky where that's concerned, so I'll take short ones as well. Just do me the favour and take five minutes and write a review, all right? ;)


	10. Chapter Nine - What Is This Feeling?

Chapter Nine – What Is This Feeling?

* * *

_I'm not scared to be seen_

_I make no apologies_

_This is me_

* * *

Two weeks after the task, Cedric still seemed to be buzzing with his success. He was admired from all sides, even more so than before the task, and even though he hadn't managed to get any sense out of the golden egg's screaming yet, he still seemed to be in the highest of spirits. Martin, too, was feeling like the world was now a brighter place than it had been before the first task – somehow, the fact that all the champions had got past a dragon unscathed had served to lessen his anxiety. Surely the other tasks could not be _that _dangerous. And anyway, three whole months would pass before the second task was going to take place, and the fact that Christmas was approaching made Martin's happiness complete. He loved Christmas, when the whole world disappeared under a thick blanket of snow that somehow made it a quieter, more beautiful place. He also enjoyed having the castle almost to himself during the Christmas holidays, for nearly everybody else usually went home to celebrate with their families, while he simply moved into his father's rooms during these weeks, where they played chess, brewed potions, read books and talked about everything and nothing, without him having to do homework or his father having to teach. This year, however, the pleasure of an almost empty castle would be denied him, because the Tournament involved something which John had started to jokingly refer to as "the fourth task": the Yule Ball on Christmas Day. It was open only to fourth-years and above, but because younger students were allowed to go if invited by an older one, nearly everybody was going to stay at Hogwarts this year. Cedric, as a champion, was going to have to open the Ball – a prospect that would have terrified Martin, but Cedric said that he was quite looking forward to it.

"Who are you going to ask, then?" John asked Cedric one evening when they were all lying in their beds. Cedric had already been asked to go to the Ball with them by three girls in Martin's hearing, but he had turned them all down.

There was a moment's silence. Then, Cedric said, in an uncharacteristically sheepish voice: "I, ahh … but don't spread it around or anything, okay?"

"'Course not," John replied, and after Martin and Edward had both promised to say nothing, too, Cedric cleared his throat and continued: "You know, I thought of … maybe … asking Cho Chang."

Martin could hear by his tone of voice that he must be grinning behind the hangings of his four-poster.

"The Ravenclaw Seeker?" Edward asked.

"Yeah," John replied instantly. "She's a fifth-year, I think."

"She is," Cedric said, and his voice sounded rather dreamy. "She's an excellent Seeker! And she's really nice, too. And …"

"Really pretty," John finished his sentence, grinning broadly as well. "Good choice, Ced! I'd move fast, though, if I were you. She's bound to have other admirers."

"Yeah, I know …," Cedric said wistfully. "But it's just really hard to get her on her own, you know? I've been trying, but she's always surrounded by friends."

"I'll come with you next time!" John replied eagerly. "I can ask that friend of hers, Marietta, if she'll come to the Ball with me! Then you can ask Cho without everyone staring only at you."

"Would you?" Cedric said, sounding immensely relieved. "You're the best, John! Thanks!"

"Don't thank me," John grinned. "Marietta's really cute! It's not exactly a big sacrifice. Who are you two going to ask?" he added, and Martin knew that he meant Edward and himself. He said nothing, and after a few moments, Edward answered first.

"I don't know … maybe I'll ask Patricia. She's nice, you know? But I can't make up my mind whether I'll ask anyone at all."

Patricia Stimpson was one of the Hufflepuff girls in their year, and Edward had always got on well with her.

"Why not?" John asked, sounding shocked. "I bet it'll be really boring to go on your own!"

"Probably," Edward admitted. "But I don't want anyone I do ask to think that it's … you know, more serious than just going to the Yule Ball for one night."

"Oh," John replied. "Well, I'm sure Patricia would be fine, then. I think she fancies Roger Davies. You know, the Ravenclaw Quidditch captain."

"Well, won't she be wanting to go with him, then?" Cedric asked.

John laughed. "I'm sure she'd love to, but unfortunately for her, I don't think Davies even knows that she exists," he smirked, and Martin felt a surge of anger at John.

"Poor Patricia! I feel sorry for, then," he said resolutely. "Do ask her, Edward. I know she likes you as a friend, and I'm sure you'll have a great time together."

"Yeah, I think I will," Edward said, sounding quite satisfied at the result of the conversation. "And what about you, Martin? Who would you like to go with?"

Martin's stomach gave a short twinge. He shrugged, then realised that the others couldn't see him, and said, very careful not to let the words come out too hastily: "No one in particular. I think I'll go on my own. I can't dance anyway, so I don't want to ask someone and then not be able to … entertain them at all, you know?"

John snorted with laughter. "_Entertain them_? I think the Weird Sisters will provide enough entertainment for all of us … and I can't dance either, I'm just going to improvise, you know? How hard can it be?" He laughed again.

"No," Martin said firmly. "I really don't want to do that. I'll be fine going on my own."

"Oh well", John replied, in an offhand tone of voice, "suit yourself. I think we ought to try and sleep now, if Cedric, Edward and I are going to ask girls to the Ball tomorrow."

They exchanged goodnights, and silence fell in their dormitory. Martin lay on his back and stared at the hangings of his four-poster. He was looking forward to the Ball. Sort of. But he'd also tried to think about it as little as possible over the last few days. Now, however, after the conversation they'd just had, he found that he couldn't push it out of his mind any longer.

The truth was, Martin did not want to go to the Ball alone. In fact, he had a perfectly clear idea of who he'd like to go with. He found that the more he thought about it, the more certain he became that there was very little he wanted so much in the world right now as to go to the Yule Ball with this particular person. But it was, of course, impossible.

Martin folded his hands beneath his head and stared up at the hangings. He had never been in love before. In fact, he had never really thought about what it would be like to fall in love with someone. It had never been a topic of conversation with his father, because Martin knew how it pained him to talk about anything that had to do with his mother, and they'd never really talked about girls in their dormitory as they had done now as well. Although he was very good-looking, Cedric had to Martin's knowledge never had a girlfriend, at least not at Hogwarts. Now he seemed to fancy Cho Chang, but that was the first time Martin had ever heard him talk in that way about a girl before. John was rather more daring in this particular matter and had had a few girlfriends, but none of them had lasted very long. Edward, on the other hand, had mentioned a girl he knew at home a couple of times, and Martin had the impression that he was in a steady relationship with her, which would also explain why he'd been worried about asking a girl to the Ball in case it gave the wrong impression. On the whole, Martin hadn't had a lot of conversations about how it felt like to be in love with somebody. He could not, therefore, be certain that he was in love now. But he thought he was. He thought that the rush of happiness he felt every time he saw this person, how he smiled just because this person smiled too, the way his skin prickled every time this person touched him, how his stomach lurched at these occasions with a mixture of giddiness and nervousness, all these things seemed to him to add up to the fact that he had fallen in love. He would not have doubted it at all, despite his lack of experience in the matter, if the person he was feeling all these things about was called Mary, or Jane, or Catherine. This was not the case, however. The person who made him so inexplicably happy every time he talked to him or smiled at him, and the one who he wanted to go to the Yule Ball with more than anything else in the world, was Ramin, and that was why he had tried his best not to give too much thought to these unsettling new feelings before.

Because, obviously, he, Martin, was a boy.

And Ramin was also a boy.

Martin shifted his weight nervously. Boys, he knew, were supposed to fall in love with girls. But he'd never even thought twice that way about any girl before, let alone felt the way about any of them that he was feeling now about Ramin. But perhaps this meant that he'd never been in love at all, and that he wasn't in love now? Perhaps he was just experiencing a particularly close friendship for the first time in his life, and close friendships always felt this way? Well, he thought and swallowed nervously, there was one way to find out. You kissed the person you were in love with. Nobody kissed their friends.

Martin took a deep breath, because he was half scared of the result of this little experiment, and then resolutely closed his eyes and imagined that Ramin was lying beside him, kissing him softly on the lips. Immediately, his mind presented him with a vivid image of his best friend, his black, untidy hair, his deep brown eyes, his playful smile. And when he imagined him bending down to kiss him, he could almost feel Ramin's lips on his, tasting a little of coco and feeling wonderfully warm and a little rough and a little soft. Something stirred deep down inside him, and he opened his eyes quickly, breathing hard. Imagining to kiss Ramin felt … _good_.

_Really _good.

Martin tried to conjure up the image of some girl, attempting to see whether this wouldn't feel better than imagining to kiss another boy, but he didn't even succeed in doing so much as picture the girl. She kept turning into Ramin, no matter how often he tried.

Finally, he gave up. He listened to the gentle sound of the breathing of his dormitory mates for a while, while his mind swept back over the last three months and everything that had happened between himself and Ramin.

How he had gone red after being praised by Ramin in Potions.

How his whole body had prickled when Ramin had touched him in Defence Against the Dark Arts.

How he'd felt so safe and exuberantly happy with Ramin on his broomstick.

How a rush of happiness had flooded through him when Ramin had told him that he'd rather wait with him than with his fellow Gryffindors for the foreign students.

How he'd been unable to focus on Dumbledore's speech at the feast afterwards because Ramin had sat so close to him that their knees were pressed against each other.

What a wonderful day they'd had in Hogsmeade.

And then, finally, how he had hidden his face on Ramin's shoulder in a moment when he'd been weak and had wanted some protection, some secure place to hide him for a moment from the outside world.

Martin contemplated all this for some time, until finally his suspicion turned to certainty: whether it was supposed to happen or not, he had fallen in love with Ramin.

With another boy.

_I'm gay_, Martin thought, letting the word echo through his head for the first time. _I've fallen in love with a boy. I'm gay._

Was that going to be a problem? Martin didn't really know. Never, ever had he talked about homosexuality to anybody. The subject had never been raised by others as well. Did that mean it was sort of … taboo? Was he going to be discriminated against if people found out he was gay? He knew that some people would undoubtedly taunt him because of it, but then again, he thought, they'd be the sort of people who'd gleefully seize any excuse to bully somebody. As he thought about how others were going to react if they found out he loved a boy, he realised that he really did not care very much. He didn't have many friends anyway, so it wasn't like he had a lot to lose. But how were the people he _did _care about going to react?

He thought about his dormitory mates. He was fairly certain there wouldn't be too many problems here. Cedric was nice, he was going to stay nice no matter who Martin was in love with. Edward believed in keeping his nose out of other people's business, so Martin was sure that his sexuality wouldn't matter to Edward. John was going to crack a few jokes about it, obviously, but Martin didn't think he was likely to really turn against him. And Martin thought that he'd be able to take any joke so long as Ramin was at his side.

Ramin … How was _Ramin _going to react if Martin told him that he was in love with him?

At the mere idea, his insides seemed to be curling up in fright. The thought of _telling _Ramin about his feelings for him was nothing short of terrifying. What if Ramin would laugh at him? What if he didn't feel the same way about Martin and was disgusted at someone he'd thought of as his friend suddenly wanting to be … more than friends?

But then, Martin thought of all the things Ramin had done and said to him over the last few months. He'd touched him, hadn't he? _He _had been the one to slide up this close to Martin on the bench, _he _had come over to stand with him at the arrival of the students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, not the other way around. And the way Ramin smiled at him, the way he always sought out his company, even though Fred and George and Lee had to be much more exiting to be with?

Martin's heart beat faster as he contemplated all this, and his mouth went very dry when he realised that all these things, these tiny things could add up to … _Ramin feeling the same way about me_.

Even in his head, he hardly dared even to whisper the words. Because if that was actually true, if Ramin was in love with him … then, Martin thought, nothing would be as it had been before. He felt as though a firework was going off in his stomach at the mere thought, and dug his sweaty hands into his sheet. They'd be able to go to the Yule Ball together, to walk hand in hand through the school, to _kiss _…

Martin realised that, if the unthinkable were true and Ramin was in love with him, that he would not care what any other person in this whole school, or indeed the entire world thought about his sexual orientation. No one's opinion would matter to him, so long as he had Ramin at his side. No one's – except …

Martin swallowed. There was, of course, one person whose opinion _would _matter to him, would matter so much that he couldn't even allow himself to think about what would happen if that person would mind his being gay. Would cease talking to him. Would perhaps not love him anymore. Would hate him.

Martin slowly ran his hands through his hair and then pressed them tightly over his face.

He was gay. He was in love with Ramin, a _Gryffindor_ student.

And how on earth was he going to tell his father?

Because he needed to tell him. He needed to tell him before he could even think about maybe going to the Yule Ball with Ramin, because if – _if _that really happened, he needed to know that his father, the most important person on earth to him, was behind him. He could not wait to see what would happen and then let his father find out by seeing him and Ramin together, or by hearing other students talk about them. He could not simply go along with things and all the while wonder what his father was making of it, whether he thought it was all right, or whether he was already planning to disinherit him.

No, Martin needed to talk to his father before anything else happened, and needed to reassure himself that his father would still love him, even if he had a _boyfriend _from _Gryffindor_.

The problem was that Martin really did not have the faintest idea how his father was going to react. Never, ever had he talked to him about homosexuality. He simply did not know what his father was going to do when he found out that his son was gay. The idea that he might throw Martin out, that he might hate him, caused a huge wave of fear to roll over him, and he suddenly felt sick. He knew then that he would not be able to handle it if this led to an estrangement with his father. He was so scared all of a sudden that he considered not saying anything to him at all, to simply keep silent, but he instantly wondered what he would then do if it really happened and Ramin – asked him to the Ball, or something. Martin knew that he would not be able to say no, would not want to say no, and he really did not want to keep something as important as this concealed from his father, either. _And anyway_, Martin thought defiantly,_ this_ _is who I am, and if he really loves me, he'll still love me when he knows I'm gay. _And that his father really loved him, of that Martin had no doubt.

He took a deep breath and rolled over onto his side. _I'll tell him tomorrow_, he thought resolutely, closing his eyes in order to be able to fall asleep. _This is me, and Dad loves me. This won't change anything._

And holding on to that thought, he drifted away into sleep.

* * *

Author's note:

The quotation at the beginning is taken from the film _The Greatest Showman_, the songs in which are by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul.

I'm sorry that there was yet again a two-week break between chapters. I'll try to get the update-rhythm back to once a week. I'm also still looking for a native speaker to beta this story, so please write me a PM if you're interested :)

I always enjoy writing, but this chapter really went from my hands like a knife through butter. I was and still am particularly pleased with it, and am therefore all the more curious to find out if you liked it, too. So, as always, please write a review and let me know what you think! (And I know I can't do more than ask. But ask I will. Every time.)


	11. Chapter Ten - Confessions

Chapter Ten – Confessions

* * *

_He was never mine to keep_

_He is youthful, he is free_

_Love is the garden of the young_

_Let it be_

_Let it be_

_A heart full of love_

_This I give you this day_

* * *

The next day, Martin bade goodnight to Ramin after dinner and intended to go straight down to his father's rooms, but as he reached the top of the staircase descending into the dungeons, he suddenly felt panic swelling inside him like a balloon at the thought of what he was about to do. He stood there uncertainly for a moment, then chickened out and directed his steps instead towards the library, thinking that his father wouldn't be in his rooms yet anyway and that he might as well finish his Transfiguration homework first. Once he'd sat down and taken out his books, he regretted that he'd already said goodnight to Ramin – without him, doing his homework was much harder and took a lot longer. Then again, the longer it took, the longer he could put off talking to his father. He therefore opened his books, intending to read up on the topic of human Transfiguration thoroughly before continuing his essay.

Two and a half hours later, he put aside his quill and re-read what he'd written. It might not be 'O'-material, but it wasn't bad either, he thought. He might even be able to scrape an 'E' for a change. He carefully rolled up his essay and put it back into his schoolbag, alongside his books, quill and bottle of ink. Then he sat there, staring at the bookshelves all around him, and tried to gather up his courage to go and tell his father about the results of last night's thinking. His throat became very dry again as he tried to prepare what he was going to say in his head.

_Dad, you know Ramin Wilkinson, who I've been telling you about? I think I'm in love with him. Yes, I know he's a boy._

_Dad, everyone's talking about who they're going to the Yule Ball with, and I'd really like to go with Ramin, from Gryffindor. I think I love him._

_Dad, I've fallen in love. With Ramin Wilkinson, from Gryffindor._

_Dad, I'm in love with a boy. I'm gay._

The more he thought about it, the sicker he felt. Each of these sentences made him shudder with repulse. It had sounded all right yesterday in his head, but now that he was about to go down there and say it, he didn't think he'd be able to do it.

Suddenly, there was a noise somewhere to his right. Martin's view was blocked by bookshelves, but it sounded as though somebody was clearing his throat.

"Excuse me," said a deep voice in a foreign accent. "Could I sit here for a minute?"

"Oh, ahm – yes," replied a girl's voice that sounded vaguely familiar to Martin.

"You are – Hermy-own, are you not?" the first voice asked somewhat stiffly. Martin got the impression that the speaker might be a little nervous. But who on earth was "Hermy-own" supposed to be?

"Um, yes. Hermione, actually," the girl's voice answered, and now Martin knew who it was: Hermione Granger, a fourth-year from Gryffindor. He hadn't recognized her voice immediately because it hardly carried any trace of the rather bossy tone she usually spoke in now. It sounded timid, and just as nervous as Martin thought the other speaker was, too.

"I am Viktor Krum," the first voice said, and Martin's eyes widened. He'd never heard Krum speak before. But now that he thought about it, he _had _seen him in the library once or twice lately. He'd even wondered fleetingly what he was doing there. Surely he didn't have to study for any classes this year, did he?

"Yes, I know," Hermione replied, then, as though she suddenly wondered whether it had been rude to say this, she hastily added: "I'm … pleased to meet you."

"You, too," Krum answered gruffly. There was a moment's silence. Then Krum added: "You spend a lot of time in the library."

"Oh," Hermione said, rather breathlessly. "Yes, I … study a lot for school."

Another few seconds' silence passed, and then Hermione, clearly uncomfortable, added in a very high voice: "So … are you studying in here, too?"

"No," Krum replied, then cleared his throat again. "I've been coming here because – because –"

Whatever the reason, it plainly seemed to be very difficult for Krum to voice.

"– because I vanted to come and talk to you," he finally said in a rush.

Martin felt his face grow hot. This clearly wasn't a conversation that was meant for his ears. But if he moved now, they'd hear him and know he'd been listening to them all along. There was nothing to do but stay put.

"To … to talk to me?" Hermione asked, sounding astonished.

"Yes," Krum replied, rather louder than before, as though he was relieved that the words were finally out. "I've been coming here every day, but until now I haven't been – vell … I couldn't quite … do it," he finished and there was a short silence again. Martin held his breath, afraid that they would hear him if he made so much as the slightest noise.

"Oh, ahm, well," Hermione stammered, clearly overwhelmed by this confession. "Well, I'm – pleased you did it now." She gave a very nervous little laugh. "So … what was it that you … wanted to say to me?"

"I vanted to ask you", Krum replied, his accent very pronounced, "if you vill come to the Yule Ball vith me."

Silence again. Then Hermione asked incredulously: "You … you want to go to the Yule Ball … with _me_?"

"Yes," Krum confirmed in his gruff voice. "If you vould like to."

Hermione laughed again, a little louder than before. "Yes!" she said, still in the same, high voice. "Yes, I would!"

"You vill?" Krum asked, sounding surprised, but pleased.

"Yes," Hermione repeated, still rather breathlessly.

"Oh," Krum said. "Good. Shall ve meet in the Entrance Hall at eight o'clock?"

"Yes," Hermione said again, sounding now as though she was smiling widely.

"I look forvard to seeing you then," Krum said formally, and Martin heard the sound of a chair being pushed back and heavy footsteps growing fainter as Krum walked away. A moment later, Martin heard Hermione throw her books into her bag and leave the library as well, breathing very fast and walking with a spring in her step.

He remained at his desk, staring at the blank surface. So Viktor Krum had wanted to ask Hermione Granger to the Ball and had finally plucked up the courage to do it tonight. Well, if Krum could do it, then so could he.

He got up resolutely, slung his bag over his shoulder and set off towards his father's rooms.

* * *

When he opened the door, his father was sitting at his desk, grading essays and scowling as usual when he did this. At the sound of the door, he looked up.

"Martin." He straightened up, frowning slightly because Martin didn't usually visit him on a Tuesday night. "Is something the matter?"

Martin hesitated for a fraction of a second, then he replied with a resolute "Yes" and closed the door behind him.

His father stood up, the essays forgotten. "What happened?" he asked sharply, concerned.

"Nothing's … happened, exactly," Martin answered and nervously flexed his fingers. "I just … want to tell you something, that's all."

"Sit down," his father told him and rounded his desk, seating himself next to Martin on the sofa. Martin sat at the very edge and kneaded the fingers of his left hand with his right. He felt panic rising up inside him again, but he told himself to breathe deeply and relax. _You can do this_.

He inhaled, and said: "I –"

He looked up at his father, at his brows furrowed in concern, at his black eyes fixed unblinkingly upon him. In his mind's eye, he saw these eyes narrowing in anger, saw his father's mouth twisting in fury and disappointment. His throat suddenly felt too tight to produce so much as a single sound. He stared up into his father's face, mouth slightly open, and felt as though he'd been turned into stone. _Just say it_, a voice in his head told him, but he was utterly unable. His hands were shaking, and he felt cold sweat break out all over his body.

His father kept returning his gaze, and upon what Martin supposed must have been an expression of pure terror on his face, his father's look softened. He took Martin's hands and held them tenderly in his own.

"What are you afraid of, Martin?"

He kept staring up at his father. He simply could not unfreeze his tongue, but his father guessed the answer without too much difficulty. "My reaction?"

He nodded, his mouth still paper-dry.

His father smiled, and there was a softness in his gaze that even Martin hadn't seen there before very often. "Martin, I am your father. No matter what you have done, you don't have to be afraid of me."

"But I didn't _do _anything!" Martin blurted out, finding that he could suddenly talk again. "I was just … thinking last night and … there's something I need to tell you."

"Then do," his father replied, gently, but firmly.

Martin stared up at him, took a deep breath, opened his mouth and then, as he breathed out again, the words rushed out, as if the air were carrying them with it: "I'm gay and I'm in love with Ramin Wilkinson."

His father's hands twitched. His expression didn't change, but he didn't answer, either. They stared into each other's eyes for a few seconds, during which the silence grew louder and louder in Martin's ears, until it became unbearable.

"Say something!" he demanded, and the voice in his head added cruelly, _and if it's only goodbye_. He swallowed.

His father looked at him for another two seconds, then he blinked.

"Give me a moment," he replied, his eyes now rather wider than usual, and his voice just a tiny bit unsteady. "This is … a surprise."

He exhaled audibly, and his eyes left Martin's to gaze aimlessly into the room. His hands, though, did not let go of Martin's and he clung on to that like a drowning person might cling on to a stray piece of wood. His tongue was frozen once more.

Finally, his father turned his head and looked at him again, and – Martin's heart started beating like mad – there was a tiny smile on his lips. "So, you are in love. With a boy."

He nodded, still not knowing whether that smile meant what he hoped, what he _prayed _it meant.

"How do you feel about it?"

Martin blinked. "What?"

"About that. About being gay. Are you okay with it? Did it shock you when you realised?"

Martin gave a tiny shake of his head. He felt oddly as though this conversation was being held with swapped parts at the moments.

"How do _I _feel about it?" he asked, staring incredulously at his father. "Fine, but what's more to the point, how do _you _feel about it? Are _you _okay with it or … or …" He couldn't finish the sentence. His father was still looking at him, unblinkingly and smiling.

"No, Martin. The point, the only important thing is how _you _feel about it. You are fine with it? You are happy?"

He stared at his father, mouth hanging slightly open. He didn't have a clue what he was playing at. "Well, of course I'm fine, why wouldn't I be fine!" he spluttered. "But what do _you _think? I need to know that you … that you still … that I'm still …" His voice faltered again.

His father tightened his grip around Martin's hands, and his smile widened a little. "If you're fine with it, Martin, then I'm fine, too."

Martin looked up at him, totally confused. "What?"

"Look," his father said, and there was a firm, reassuring tone in his voice now. "You are my son. I want you to be happy, in school, with your friends, with your family. With me." He smiled. "And also with whomever you happen to love in your life, whether it be a girl, a boy, a ghost or a house-elf."

Martin laughed. The idea of falling in love with a ghost or a house-elf was too absurd, and his father so rarely made jokes. The huge knot in his chest was starting to unravel, but his father was not done yet. Continuing to hold Martin's hands firmly in his own and looking him straight in the eyes, he said: "I do not care whether you're straight or gay, Martin. I admit I've never thought about it before today, and I feel guilty now that I didn't realise long before this –"

"Oh, don't!" Martin interrupted. "How could you have known? I only found out myself yesterday!"

"Still, there are some things that a parent ought to pick up on, even if the child doesn't. But," he raised his voice a little, because Martin had opened his mouth to protest again, "if you yourself do not have a problem with being gay, then I am relieved, because it means that this failure on my part does not seem to have caused any damage. And I cannot tell you how glad I am that you told me about it. You are sixteen, and I could not have blamed you if you had decided you did not want to talk about this to your father anymore. I am … very relieved that I am not yet superfluous to you, even though the way you are handling this situation shows me clearly that you are no longer a child, but more mature and sensible than many wizards far older than you. I am … very proud of you."

Martin looked into his father's eyes, warm, caring, sincere. Slowly, the meaning of his father's world began to sink in. "You … you don't hate me?" he asked, unable to stop himself, driven by an unquenchable urge to rid himself of all his fears. "You're not disgusted or disappointed or wishing I weren't your son?"

His father gripped his shoulders very tightly and looked straight into his eyes. "You are my son," he said, slowly and clearly. "And there is nothing in the world that makes me happier than you do. I want you to be exactly the way you are. I would not ever change a single thing about you. I love you."

"Really?" Martin whispered.

"Really," his father replied, without hesitating so much as a fraction of a second.

He looked into his father's eyes for another few moments, then, finally, the tension broke. He threw himself into his father's arms and hugged him tightly. "Thanks, Dad," he whispered into his shoulder, and his father wrapped his arms around him and held him, and he felt safe, secure and relieved beyond all measure. _It's fine_, he kept telling himself, over and over again. _It's fine, it's fine, it's fine._

Finally, they let go of each other and Martin leaned back into the cushions, grinning broadly. It felt like he was breathing freely again for the first time since last night.

His father leaned back a little as well and turned to look at him again, one corner of his mouth drawn upwards to make a somewhat lopsided smile.

"So", he said, "this Wilkinson boy not only managed to worm his way into my class, but also made you fall in love with him."

"He didn't _make _me, Dad," Martin contradicted him. "I just _did_. He's, like, the nicest guy I've ever met. And he's such a good wizard, and he's an incredible flyer, and he's funny and so easy to be around and …" _So handsome_, Martin continued in his head. He was not quite prepared to discuss _that _side of things with his father, no matter how often he assured him that he didn't care if Martin was gay. In fact, that really didn't have anything to do with it; he would not have wanted to talk to his father about why exactly he found a girl physically attractive, either.

His father was still watching him, with a bit of an odd expression on his face. "You certainly fell hard, didn't you?" he asked finally.

Martin nodded slowly. "Yeah," he replied, and his face split into a dreamy smile as he thought about Ramin and how happy it made him to be around him. Then he thought about Ramin's performances in Potions – not awful, but not exactly brilliant, either – and his father's continued taunts against him. "I mean, I know you don't like him, Dad, but –"

"I don't know him," his father interrupted him sharply.

Martin looked at him, surprised. "That's never stopped you before," he said before he could stop himself.

His father's lips tightened. "I would thank you not to confuse what I deem sufficient knowledge about the students in my classroom with the way I'd like to know my son's boyfriend," he said curtly.

"Sorry," Martin mumbled, but couldn't suppress a grin at the fact that his father's tongue hadn't even so much as stumbled over the last word. "He's not my boyfriend, though." _Not yet._

"And do you think he will be?" his father asked.

"Well … I dunno. Maybe," Martin replied, feeling his face grow warm and grinning helplessly. "You see, Dad, I really …" His voice faltered again, but now he wanted to get this last thing off his chest as well. "I really want to go to the Ball with him."

His father looked at him for a few moments, then said with a smile: "Well, ask him then. From what I've heard and seen, he seems to be keen on you as well."

"I couldn't!" Martin gasped, his face burning now. "I, um… don't have the guts, I think."

"Wait for him to ask you, then," his father replied very dryly. "Guts are, after all, supposed to be a Gryffindor's speciality." His lips curled, but the look in his eyes was still warm. After a moment of silence, Martin burst out laughing. And, incredibly, a few seconds later, his father even joined in.

* * *

Author's note:

The quotation at the beginning is taken from the musical _Les Misérables_ by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg, based on the novel by Victor Hugo, Lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer. The only change I made concerns the pronouns - in the original lyrics, it says "she" instead of "he".

I always wondered how exactly this first talk between Krum and Hermione sounded like, since we weren't allowed to witness it in the books, and I could not resist writing my own version of it now. Otherwise, my own plot is now picking up a little, too, and with it grows my curiosity to hear what you think. To be perfectly honest, there are not too many people reading this story, so if YOU enjoy reading it, then please don't rely on others to write reviews, but take five minutes and write one yourself. A first goal would be to have at least as many reviews as chapters ;)


	12. Chapter Eleven - The Yule Ball

Chapter Eleven – The Yule Ball

* * *

And Ramin did ask him.

On Friday afternoon, they had just left the Transfiguration classroom and were heading down to dinner when Ramin said casually: "Fred, George and Lee were talking about the Ball earlier."

"_Everyone's _been talking about it lately," Martin replied, his heart suddenly racing.

"Yeah, I know," Ramin said, grinning as he jumped a trick step. "But it's sort of got me thinking …"

His voice trailed off, and Martin had to remind himself to keep breathing during the short silence that followed. Was this the moment he'd been hoping for? Or was Ramin going to tell him about wanting to ask Angelina Johnson, Alicia Spinnet or some other girl in a minute and shatter all the wonderful dreams that had been forming in his head over the last couple of days?

"Anyway," Ramin resumed, and turned to look at Martin with his usual grin, but Martin thought there was a just touch of nervousness in his voice when he continued: "Do you know who you'll be going with yet?"

He had stopped walking, and they were standing quite alone at the foot of the stairs as the last of the other students' backs vanished around a corner.

"Um, no," Martin answered and swallowed nervously, the excitement within him close to breaking point. This had to be it, it _had _to!

"Good," Ramin said, still with this slightly nervous smile playing on his lips. It made him look _unbelievably _cute. "Because I was sort of hoping we might be able to go together."

Martin's green eyes were fixed on Ramin's brown ones as a firework started to go off in his stomach. _Yes! Yes, yes, yes, yes, YES!_

"Um, okay," Martin answered, clearing his throat because his voice was threatening to abandon him. "Yeah, I'd like that."

Ramin's smile lit up Martin's whole world. "Great! I'll wait for you in the Entrance Hall at eight then, all right?"

"Yeah," Martin replied, with an ear-to-ear grin and feeling as though he was floating a foot above the ground with happiness. They grinned at each other for a few more seconds, then, when neither of them said anything else, they started walking towards the Great Hall again. The silence between them didn't feel awkward, though. On the contrary, Martin had never enjoyed simply walking down a corridor as much as he did at this moment, and the confirmation that Ramin was feeling exactly the same came when he said, still beaming: "Boy, I really can't wait for Christmas!"

* * *

And then, finally, the evening of Christmas Day, and with it the Yule Ball, arrived. Martin was standing in his father's rooms in front of a mirror, checking his reflection and nervously running a hand over his hair to make sure it was still in shape. He was wearing green dress robes that were supposed to bring out his eyes and wishing for the dozenth time this evening that his nose was a bit less prominent as he surveyed himself in the mirror. But there was nothing he could do about that – and anyway, Ramin knew what he looked like, and if his nose hadn't stopped him asking Martin to the Ball, it was unlikely to bother him now. Despite this reassuring thought, Martin's heart was racing in his chest, and he was breathing very quickly. His stomach was alive with nerves, but also with giddy anticipation. It was going to be an exceptional night.

"Well, how do I look?" he asked his father as he stepped into the room, dressed, as usual, from head to heel in black.

His father considered him for a moment, then broke into a smile. "He will be delighted," he said, and Martin smiled back at him, feeling so light-headed that he hoped he wasn't about to feint.

His father stepped up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. "You will be fine, Martin," he said reassuringly, and Martin could see his lips moving in their reflection in the mirror, their faces, differing only in the colour of their eyes and the length of their hair – short in Martin's case – right next to each other.

"I only hope your housemates won't be offended," his father said with a twinkle in his eyes, "seeing as you're dressed in Slytherin colours today."

It was meant to be a joke, but at these words a horrible thought occurred to Martin, and his eyes widened in shock. "Merlin's beard, I never checked what colour robes Ramin will be wearing! And if it's Gryffindor scarlet, that's going to look absolutely horrible together! God, what am I going to do?" He felt like ripping his dress robes right off again. Why on earth hadn't he considered this before?

"Martin", his father said, squeezing his shoulder and speaking in a reassuringly calm tone, "calm down! It will be all right. Nobody's going to care if the colours of your robes match or not. You are going to make a great pair tonight, because it does not matter what's out here", he gave Martin's robes a gentle tug, "but only what's in there." He laid his left hand lightly upon Martin's chest, right above his heart.

Martin took a deep breath, then swallowed, turned and kissed his father on the cheek. "Right. I'd better go. See you later!"

"Good luck," his father said, smiling after him as Martin opened the door and stepped out into the corridor.

* * *

When he came up the steps into the Entrance Hall, it was packed with students. He looked around for Ramin, but couldn't spot him immediately. He caught a glimpse of Edward with Patricia and John with the Ravenclaw girl, Marietta, but Cedric wasn't with them – he was probably waiting right at the doors to the Great Hall, as the champions were going to enter it in procession before opening the Ball. Martin started making his way through the crowd, looking around for Ramin. He thought he might perhaps be waiting nearer to the stairs leading up towards the Gryffindor common room, and tried to get closer to them. But then, he heard a call from somewhere to his right: "Martin! Over here!"

He turned. Ramin was not wearing red. His dress robes were dark blue, dotted with tiny white spots that sparkled when the light fell upon them. It looked as though he was wearing the starry sky.

They made their way towards each other, until they were finally face to face. Martin would have liked to say "Hi," or something like that, but his tongue was once again denying him its service. An insane urge had gripped him to kiss Ramin right then and there, in front of everybody. Never had he seen anything as handsome as his best friend was in that very moment.

Ramin beamed at him, his eyes glowing just as brightly as the stars on his robes. "You look … really great," he said, again with this touch of nervousness that Martin found so impossible to resist.

"Yeah, ahm … thanks. You, too," he managed, and as Ramin's smile widened still, a feeling of weightlessness took hold of him again, as if he would take to the air and soar at any moment.

"Have you had a good day?" Ramin asked. They had seen each other only briefly at lunch because Martin had spent the rest of the day down in the dungeons with his father, celebrating Christmas with him.

"Yeah," Martin replied, relieved to find that he could talk normally again. "You?"

"Me, too," Ramin answered. "Christmas at Hogwarts is great, but I also wish I could have seen my family. You're really lucky, to have your dad right here with you."

"Do you have any siblings?" Martin asked, the question having just occurred to him as Ramin mentioned his family and wondering why he hadn't asked him this before.

"Nah, just Mom, Dad and me," Ramin smiled. "Mom always says I cause so much trouble than I'm more than enough."

Martin laughed. "Is she a witch, too?"

Ramin nodded. "Yeah. Dad's a No-Maj, though. Sorry, a Muggle," he added, upon Martin's puzzled look. "It's what we call them in America. You should come and stay in the summer holidays, I bet Mom and Dad would love to have you!"

"Yeah, that'd be great!" Martin beamed as he imagined being alone with Ramin for a week or longer, without John or the Weasley twins or any of the others around.

"What about you? Do you have brothers and sisters?" Ramin asked him.

Martin shook his head. "No, it's just me and Dad."

"Your mom …," Ramin began tentatively, as if he was uncertain whether it was safe to ask or not. Martin cut across him. "She's dead," he said. "She died when I was just a baby. I don't remember her at all."

"I'm sorry," Ramin murmured, suddenly sounding embarrassed, as though he very much regretted having mentioned the subject in the first place.

"Don't be," Martin said. "Like I said, I never even knew her. And I've got Dad." He was going to tell Ramin everything he knew – or rather, everything he _didn't_, but wanted to know about his mother someday, but not now. Not tonight. He was not going to let anything spoil his fun tonight.

Then, the doors to the Great Hall opened, and everyone started moving towards them. Ramin smiled at Martin, and Martin smiled back. Ramin held out his right arm. "Shall we?" he asked, his eyes sparkling again.

Martin took a deep breath, then grinned back at Ramin and put his hand on his friend's arm. Sparks of energy seemed to race through his whole body from the spot where his hand was touching Ramin and he felt like he was walking on air as they, too, made their way towards the doors. When they reached it, they passed the champions lined up next to it; Fleur Delacour and her partner Roger Davies, whom according to John Patricia fancied, at the front, behind them Cho and Cedric, who did look surprised when he saw Martin holding Ramin's arm, but still returned the smile Martin gave him. He only recognized Hermione Granger because he knew that it was her – she looked unbelievably different from the bushy-haired girl with the large front teeth that she usually resembled. Last were Harry and a girl from Gryffindor who was in the same year, but Martin couldn't remember her name. The girl was smiling; Harry, Martin thought, looked rather as though he was about to face a dragon again.

When they entered the Hall, they saw that the house tables had been removed for the evening and that they had been replaced by many smaller tables, and it seemed as though everyone was allowed to sit wherever they liked. They looked around and Martin spotted Edward and John sitting with their partners at a table near the front of the Hall. Ramin led him towards it.

"Are these seats taken?" he asked, smiling, and Edward shook his head.

"No, feel free," he smiled.

They sat down, and after a moment's silence, John cleared his throat and asked, rather tentatively: "So, ahm … are you here, like, together?"

Martin hadn't told his friends anything about him and Ramin going to the Ball together. After their nightly talk, they'd all believed he was going alone, and he hadn't felt that he owed it to them to correct that assumption. It had actually felt quite good keeping it a secret – reckless and daring somehow. He'd been looking forward to their astonished faces when they saw him and Ramin together, and by the looks of it, John, at least, was not going to disappoint him.

"Yes, we are," Ramin replied simply.

John opened his mouth and closed it again. "Ahm … okay," he said rather weakly, and then seemed to be at a loss for anything else to say. It was one of the very few occasions on which Martin had seen John utterly speechless, and the look in his eyes suggested that he felt something like having just been whacked over the head with a very heavy object.

It was beautiful.

His date, Marietta, looked confused as well, but Patricia smiled and Edward winked at him. Martin wondered fleetingly whether Edward might have suspected, for even though Edward usually said little and was therefore easily overlooked and underestimated, Martin had come to realise over more than five years of knowing him that he was an excellent observer.

"I don't think we've met," Ramin smiled at Marietta and reached across the table to shake her hand. Martin followed his example. "And we've only ever seen each other in lessons," Ramin added to Patricia, and they shook hands, too. "You both look very nice," he said politely to the two girls. They did indeed; Marietta was wearing red robes, and Patricia's were light-blue.

Patricia's smile widened and she replied: "Thank you, so do you!"

Marietta, however, just kept looking at Martin and Ramin as though they were something rather unpleasant that was stuck to her shoe, and John muttered: "Wouldn't have thought you were a good judge of that, actually."

Edward and Patricia threw John very filthy looks, but both Martin and Ramin ignored him. Martin simply did not care what anybody thought about him and Ramin being here together, and Ramin had just spotted his Gryffindor dormitory-mates.

"Fred, George, Lee! Over here!" he yelled, and the three of them made their way towards their table with their partners and sat down.

"Excellent seats!" one of the twins said jubilantly. "Not that Angelina and I will be sitting around a lot tonight, we'll be dancing like crazy." Angelina giggled and the twin put his arm around her. None of the Gryffindors seemed to be surprised to see Martin and Ramin there together, so Martin assumed that Ramin had either told them or they simply did not care.

"That's the spirit, Fred," Ramin grinned, and Martin suddenly felt a stab of anxiety. Would Ramin be expecting him to dance with him tonight? He wouldn't have minded if he'd been able to dance, but he'd never been taught and he really didn't want to go out there, only to make a fool of himself.

But before he could talk to Ramin about it, Professor McGonagall led the champions and their partners into the Great Hall, and Martin clapped along with the rest as they made their way towards the top table, were the Triwizard judges were also seated. Once they'd settled down, everybody looked at the menus lying out on the tables, then placed their order with their plate, and whatever food they had requested appeared there.

Martin ordered pumpkin juice and mashed potatoes, then raised his glass to Ramin, who was drinking wine and grinning at him. "Cheers! Here's to us!"

Martin grinned back. "To us!" he said and took a sip of his juice.

The Great Hall was filled with the chatter of hundreds of students, all laughing and talking animatedly over their dinner. As he looked around, Martin was pleased to see that theirs was not the only mixed-house table. Many students seemed to have asked people from other houses to go to the Ball with them, and Martin even saw a few tables where Gryffindors and Slytherins were sitting peacefully together, talking and apparently getting on quite well. At their own table, the conversations were rather divided, with all the Gryffindors apart from Ramin talking about some sweets that Fred, George and Lee seemed to have invented, and John and Marietta and Edward and Patricia talking amongst themselves, though John did keep throwing odd glances at Ramin and Martin, as though he still couldn't believe what he was seeing.

Martin couldn't have cared less, though. They'd picked up where they'd left off in the Entrance Hall, and Ramin was telling him about his parents. "Mom's sort of an inventor, I guess," he said between spoonfulls of lamb stew. "In the US, she used to work at a company that developed all kinds of objects, from children's toys over basic defence-stuff to brooms. She was in development, but when we moved here she quit, obviously, and now she's with the Flyer's Factory, working on various broom series. She likes it, brooms are her speciality and she loves Quidditch! And Dad's an actor, well, a singer, really. He worked on Broadway, but when they offered him a job in the West End, he said yes. He's from Britain originally, so he always wanted to come back over here."

"Broadway?" Martin asked, confused. He'd heard of the West End, that was a part of Muggle London, but the other word was new to him. Ramin rolled his eyes.

"Broadway! A street in New York with loads of theatres and things. It's, like, world-famous in the No-Maj world. I can't believe you've never heard of it before."

Martin grinned at the term _No-Maj_. He'd never given it a thought before, but it sort of made sense that different societies would make up their own names for non-magical people. "I've never had much contact with the Muggle world," he replied, wondering fleetingly where their own term derived from. The meaning and origin of the American expression was far more easily guessed. "I did have Muggle Studies for the last three years, but we only ever talked about cars and airplanes and … electricity and stuff." He was proud that he still remembered that word, but Ramin just rolled his eyes again.

"Honestly, wizards can be so arrogant! No-Majs have things that we don't even dream of, movies and telephones and all kinds of stuff! In many ways, No-Majs have compensated their lack of magic so well that they're almost equal to us, and especially were music is concerned, wizards aren't even a little better than No-Majs. Quite the opposite, in fact."

Martin frowned. He admittedly knew nothing about Muggle music, but couldn't believe that it was _better _than theirs.

"Come off it! We've got the Singing Sirens, the Roaring Rogues, your American Bent-Winged Snitches, Celestina Warbeck, the Weird Sisters … they'll be playing later, then you'll see that they're –"

"So what," Ramin interrupted dismissively. "The No-Majs have Madonna, Michael Jackson, Billy Joel, ABBA, Queen …"

"The _Queen_?" Martin asked, sure that he had misheard.

"Not _the _Queen, _Queen_, they're a band. They're fantastic, they're like –"

But he broke off, and suddenly looked quite sad.

"What is it?" Martin asked.

"Their lead singer," Ramin said, in a very downcast voice. "He was … the best musician in the world. He died, though. Almost exactly three years ago, now."

"I'm sorry," Martin replied and for a moment, there was silence between them. Then Ramin smiled again and said: "Oh well, his music lives on. The show must go on."

Finally, when everyone had finished eating, Professor Dumbledore stood up and at his request, everyone followed his example. With a wave of his wand, he cleared all the tables and chairs out of the way and conjured up a stage complete with instruments, onto which the Weird Sisters came running to wild applause. When they had all settled down, they began to play, and the champions and their partners stood up and opened the Ball.

Ramin watched them for a few moments, then turned towards Martin. "Well? Shall we?" he asked, grinning at him.

Martin swallowed nervously. So Ramin _was _expecting him to dance with him. "Well, you see …", he replied hesitantly, as many others were joining the champions, and Fred and Angelina were already dancing so exuberantly that everyone else was giving them a wide berth, "I'd like to. Honestly, but the thing is I … I just can't. I've never been taught."

He looked at Ramin nervously, expecting a look of disappointment. Instead, his friend surprised him as his face split into a huge grin. "Well, if you'd really like to, it's no problem!" he beamed.

Martin frowned. "I don't want to just improvise!" he said hurriedly. "I'll just make a fool of myself."

"You won't have to improvise!" Ramin assured him, and then, to Martin's utter astonishment, he pulled out his wand. "Look, Mom and I were annoyed by how few people can dance properly anymore nowadays," he explained. "We both love dancing, but the problem – and the wonderful thing about it, really – is that you can't just do it alone, you need a partner who can dance, too. So Mom and I tried to find a way to give people who've never had a single lesson in their lives the ability to dance. And we found one." His eyes were sparkling with mischief now, just as they had when he'd told Martin on the train that he was going to help him to fly.

"It only works if one of the partners – preferably the leader, but it works if it's the follower, too – can genuinely dance. And only if the other partner's truly willing to dance as well, because this isn't an Imperius Curse. It would be way too difficult to make a spell that complex work against the bewitched person's will."

At the word _bewitched_, Martin suddenly felt apprehensive. "Look, I don't know what exactly you're on about, but –"

"It's nothing _dangerous_," Ramin assured him. "Look, I'll tell you how it works. What Mom and I did is take a Protean Charm – you know, the one we've been doing with Flitwick – and modify it slightly. Normally, one object bewitched with a Protean Charm will imitate another object precisely. But that would be impracticable for dancing, so Mom and I changed it so that the bewitched person won't mirror the leader, but will do the steps that fit to whatever the leader's dancing. In short, you'll be able to follow whatever I lead perfectly without even having to think about it. And then we modelled the Charm to work on people, because it isn't actually designed for use on living things. That was really, really hard, so in the end we narrowed it down to the legs. It looks nicer if you move your arms as well, but just the legs are enough to make it work. And without having to think about what your feet are doing, you'll be able to raise your arm in the right places in no time." He beamed at him. "So? Do you want to try it?"

Martin looked at Ramin uncertainly. This sounded like Ramin was going to put a spell on him that would enable him to dance everything Ramin wanted him to dance, which would of course be great. On the other hand, it was a spell that Ramin had practically invented himself, and if it went wrong … But his mother had helped him, he'd said, and she had _worked _in the development of magical products and spells in America.

"Have you ever done this before?" Martin asked nervously.

"'Course I have!" Ramin replied dismissively. "Loads of times! It always works, just as long as the person's willing."

Martin looked at him for another two seconds, then said, steeling himself: "Okay. Do it then."

Ramin's smile at that alone had been worth it, Martin thought, grinning, as Ramin pointed his wand at Martin's legs and said: "_Imitaballarius!"_

A tickle went through Martin's legs, but nothing else happened. "That's it?" he asked, uncertainly.

"Yep," Ramin grinned, then held out his hand, his eyes sparkling once more. "May I have the honour?"

"You may," Martin grinned, laid his hand in Ramin's, and allowed him to lead him towards the other dancers.

The Weird Sisters had already finished their first two songs and were now playing a famous song of Celestina Warbeck's, _You Charmed the Heart Right Out of Me_. It was a bit _too _tragically romantic for Martin's taste, but from the Weird Sisters it sounded better than in Celestina's high, sometimes screechy voice, and Martin thought it was all right. Ramin listened for a few moments, then he nodded. "Three quarters," he said cryptically, and while holding Martin's right hand in his left, he put his other hand on his back. A torrent of shivers went through him.

"Put your left hand on my upper arm," Ramin instructed him, and Martin obliged. They stood there for a few moments, then Ramin moved his right foot forward.

It was the weirdest sensation Martin had had in his life. His left foot moved without Martin's brain telling it to do so. It felt like someone was pulling on invisible strings and making his legs move. But before he'd had any time to really think about it, his right foot had moved, then his left again, and as quick as that, they were moving fluently across the floor, Ramin making their way around all the other couples apparently without any effort at all. It was not a very fast dance, and after half a minute or so, the weirdness started to wear off a little and Martin began to enjoy himself. He was in Ramin's arms, and he was gliding over the dance floor as though he had never done anything else in his life. A grin spread across his face, but then Ramin said: "Try going low on the accented step, then high on the two others. Your legs are already doing it, but it wouldn't hurt if you supported it with your upper body. And keep tension here." Ramin's right hand moved momentarily to his waist, setting off a new wave of shivers.

When the song was over, they stopped dancing and looked at each other. "Not bad," Ramin grinned. "How'd it feel?"

"Good," Martin replied, grinning back at him. "Can we do another one?"

Ramin's eyes lit up. "Martin, tonight, we can do every single one," he said, and Martin felt the firework going off in his stomach once more.

They danced and danced and danced and danced. As the night wore on, Martin recognised some of the steps from previous dances, but they were doing so many different ones that it never even started to get dull. To the Weird Sisters' rather bawdy song _The Wizard Laid Aside His Wand, the Witch Took Off Her Hat _they danced a quick succession of two steps backwards followed by two to the right and two forward, before two sideways and two backwards again, that made Martin feel as though he was flying across the Hall. To _Odo the Hero_, they danced backwards-forward and forward-backwards, with a long step sideways in between with one of his feet momentarily stationary, leaving a gap between the left and the right, before closing it again. To the popular song _Quidditch Star_, they made three steps backwards, three forward, and at every third step he simply tapped his right foot onto the ground without putting weight on it.

"_Weird!_" Ramin called laughing, as he was leading Martin in a sort of clockwise circle, all the while going step-step-tap, step-step-tap. "They have this song in the No-Maj world! Different lyrics and under the title _Movie Star_, but definitely the same song! I wonder who copied from whom!"

After what felt like hours, Martin was breathless and sweaty and needed a break, but he was beaming as they sat down on two chairs standing against the wall of the Hall.

"This", he said as Ramin handed him an ice-cold pumpkin juice, "is _so _brilliant. I never _dreamed _how much fun dancing is!"

"It's my second favourite sport in the world," Ramin grinned. What his favourite was, Martin did not need to ask, but it was obvious that Ramin enjoyed dancing a great deal, too. He was clearly one of the best dancers in the Hall and moved with an elegance and grace matched by hardly any of the others, and Martin thought that many people had been stealing envious glances at him throughout the night. They had generally been stared at quite a lot, Martin knew, but he couldn't have cared less. He was here with Ramin, and he was having the time of his life. That was all that mattered.

The teachers, too, had apparently noticed Ramin's great dancing abilities. Professor Dumbledore had inclined his head towards him in appreciation when they'd danced past him, and Professor McGonagall even came over to where they were sitting.

"Excellent, Wilkinson, excellent," she said, in her usual brisk tone, though also with a tiny slur in her voice – Fire Whiskey had been flowing in not inconsiderable quantities at the teachers' table all night long. "That was an excellent display you gave over there. Skills like yours at such a social occasion bring Hogwarts and Gryffindor house honour and respect!" Then she turned to Martin. "And you, too, Snape! I must confess, I did not know you could dance like that!"

"Well, I can't, Professor," he felt obliged to explain. "It's really Ramin who's doing everything."

"I see," she said, although her eyebrows furrowed slightly to indicate that she did not see at all – Martin felt it would have been too complicated to explain all about Ramin's charm, however. "Well, Snape, I suppose it must be quite a challenge for you to keep up with him then?"

Martin half shrugged, half nodded, but couldn't really think of anything to say. Ramin, however, _did _speak.

"Well, here's another challenge, Professor," he said, his eyes so full of mischief that Martin thought Professor McGonagall surely couldn't fail to notice. But Ramin stood up, bowed deeply before Professor McGonagall, and asked, with complete sincerity in his voice: "May I have the honour of this dance?"

Both Martin and Professor McGonagall stared at him, completely stunned. Professor McGonagall recovered first.

"Are you sure, Wilkinson?" she asked incredulously.

"Absolutely, Professor," Ramin replied, beaming up at her, for she was still just a little taller than him. Martin thought that she was surely going to refuse – this was firm, strict Professor McGonagall, after all – but his teacher utterly surprised him by saying, and smiling thereby, too: "Then I accept your challenge, Wilkinson. After what I've seen, I know I can trust you to steer!"

And Ramin led Professor McGonagall off onto the dance floor, and they danced a whole waltz together. When the song finished, Ramin bowed to Professor McGonagall again and actually kissed her hand before returning to Martin and sitting down in the chair next to him, grinning from ear to ear. Martin looked at him, still speechless. Upon noticing his dumbfounded look, Ramin asked: "What?" as though he really had no idea.

Martin just shook his head slowly. "That was …"

"Cool?" Ramin suggested in a very innocent tone.

"Crazy," Martin finished, but his face split into a grin again. He doubted whether even the Weasley twins would have dared ask Professor McGonagall to dance.

Ramin just shrugged, grinning all the while. "Well, I don't suppose it will win me any bonus points in class, but it was cool nevertheless." He put aside his empty glass of juice. "Do you want to dance again?"

"Yes," Martin replied, took Ramin's offered hand once more, and followed him onto the now considerably emptier dance floor.

The Weird Sisters, unimpressed by the dwindling numbers of their audience, played on and on. There were quite a lot of songs that Martin barely recognised, but others he knew well. To _Duel With Me, Darling_ by the Roaring Rogues, they danced something that hadn't come up before this evening which involved banging his left foot onto the ground at every eighth step, and to _Dragomir the Dragonrider _a dance in which his knees were bent slightly throughout all the steps and his left hand was pressed flatly into Ramin's back instead of lying on his upper arm. During the whole dance, Ramin held him so closely that their right legs were pressed against each other almost all the time, which made the firework in his stomach reach an entirely new level.

Then, finally, midnight was at hand, and when the Weird Sisters finished their last song – another one of Celestina's, _A Cauldron Full of Hot, Strong Love _–, everybody clapped as they bowed repeatedly. Dumbledore actually had tears of joy in his eyes when he stepped up onto the stage and shook each of the musicians' hands. He seemed to be offering them a nightcap, because they all followed him over to the bar shortly afterwards. A few students cast hopeful glances into that direction as well, but Professor McGonagall quickly ushered everybody else out of the Great Hall: the Ball was over.

"Hang on, I'd better lift the spell," Ramin said, pointed his wand at Martin again and said: "_Finite!_", making his legs tickle once again. They stepped out into the Entrance Hall together, both enjoying the fresh air streaming in through the oak front doors. Martin took deep breaths and beamed as feelings of elation, exhilaration and total and perfect happiness washed over him. He was exhausted, but he had never in his whole life felt like this before.

He turned towards Ramin, whose cheeks were flushed from the dancing, and whose smile was glowing even more brightly than the stars on his dress robes.

"I think", Martin said, still catching his breath, "this was the best night of my life."

Ramin's eyes were dark-brown pools, filled with a glow that shone right through Martin's skin into his heart.

"Mine, too," he said softly. He stepped closer to him, and Martin could feel Ramin's hands closing around his own again, though this time, there was no dance band anywhere near in sight. His friend's eyes never left his own when he added, his face so close to Martin's that he could almost feel the words as well as hear them: "I'm really, really glad that you came here with me tonight."

Martin didn't move a muscle. He just looked unblinkingly back at Ramin as he moved his face closer and closer, until finally he couldn't focus on his eyes anymore, so he closed his own and gave himself over to the sensation of Ramin's fingers interlocked with his own. And then, at last, he felt Ramin's lips brush softly against his own, and time stood still. It felt almost exactly as it had in his imagination, only about a million times better.

After what seemed like an eternity spent in the most beautiful of heavens, Ramin pulled away. They stood there, their fingers still intertwined, and Martin knew he never wanted to leave this place again. He just wanted to stand here, until the end of his days, and look at Ramin, feel his fingers and his lips.

"It's late," Ramin whispered, his thumbs brushing over the back of Martin's hands.

Martin swallowed and reality seemed to come back to him a little. "I know," he replied, hoarsely and barely knowing how he found the strength to speak at all.

"Wanna meet for breakfast tomorrow?" Ramin whispered, his face still aglow with warmth and care and tenderness.

"Come down to my dad's rooms," Martin replied, his head swimming with happiness to such a degree that he was utterly surprised that he could still string two coherent words together. "Any time after nine. We can go to the Great Hall from there."

"Right," Ramin whispered back, then he leaned forward, and before Martin knew it, they were kissing again.

"See you tomorrow," Ramin said after they'd broken apart again. They looked into each other's eyes for a few more seconds, then Ramin let go of his hands and turned towards the staircase. Martin watched him go, ascending the stairs, and could not quite believe what had just happened.

"Goodnight!" he called after him, and Ramin – whom he had just _kissed_ – turned around and raised his hand in a wave, before continuing further up the stairs and vanishing from his sight.

* * *

Author's note:

This chapter is based on _Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire_ by J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, London, 2000, pp. 359 – 375.

I invented the Singing Sirens and the Roaring Rogues, but the Bent-Winged Snitches actually do exist in the American magical community, see Pottermore: The Quidditch World Cup 2014, _The DA Reunites _by Rita Skeeter. The American term for Muggles, No-Majs, is taken from Pottermore as well, see the piece about Ilvermorny.

Celestina Warbeck's _You Charmed the Heart Right Out of Me _and _A Cauldron Full of Hot, Strong Love _are quoted from _Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince _by J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, London 2005, pp. 309 – 313, and _Odo the Hero_,from the same source, p. 456. I invented the other songs, although _Movie Star _actually exists, of course, and all credits go to Harpo. The idea for _The Wizard Laid Aside His Wand, the Witch Took Off Her Hat_ was given to me by _The Queen Took Off Her Sandal, the King Took Off His Crown _from George R.R. Martin's _A Storm of Swords_, Bantam Books, New York, 2011, first edition published in 2000, _A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Three_, p. 699.

Those of you who know and love Julian Fellowes' series _Downton Abbey _as well as I do will have realised that the dialogue between Ramin and Professor McGonagall is almost word by word the one between Tom and the Dowager Countess in the Christmas Special to season four, _The London Season_. Let this be a tribute to both this wonderful series and the equally wonderful Dame Maggie Smith, who plays both the Dowager Countess and Professor McGonagall superbly – even though I otherwise don't really care for the Harry-Potter-films.

This was once more a very long chapter. The last review I got to this story that was not from my beta-reader was to chapter six. Since then, I've delivered four chapters containing roughly 16,000 words. This chapter contains about 6,000. All of you who write occasionally will know just how long it takes to write 22,000 words of anything. I enjoy writing, that's why I do it, but the point of uploading this story here is to hear what others think of it. So if you think that I deserve reviews for these last few chapters, then please just take five minutes of your time and write one. You don't have to be Shakespeare, just let me know whether you enjoy the story and why. You must also feel free to criticise, but I really need feedback to improve my writing style. I delivered 22,000 words to you during the last few weeks – it'd be really nice if I received some in return. Not a thousand. But perhaps a hundred. Or fifty. Or twenty. Or anything, really. I'd really appreciate it. Thank you.


	13. Chapter Twelve - Boyfriends and Fathers

Chapter Twelve – Boyfriends and Fathers

* * *

It was almost ten when Martin heard a knock on the door and opened it to find Ramin standing outside.

"Hi," Martin said, his heart beating fast.

"Hey," Ramin smiled back, and for a moment they stood there, a little uncertainly, neither of them quite used to the new situation. Then, they leaned forward and kissed, and Martin felt as though sparks of happiness were arching through his body.

"Come in," he grinned and stepped aside, allowing Ramin to enter his father's rooms. He realised that he had never invited one of his friends in here before, but then, he thought, Ramin was rather more than a friend now. He was … _what_, exactly?

Ramin looked around and grinned. "Cool! Looks really comfy."

"Yeah," Martin replied, suddenly nervous again. "Um… sit." He pointed at the sofa. They sat down next to each other, Ramin looking around the room, Martin nervously kneading his fingers. There was an uncomfortable silence.

Martin realised he didn't really know what to say to Ramin. Were they going to talk about the kisses? Were you supposed to talk about that, or did couples usually just plunge on ahead, taking it for granted that they were now together? Was he sure that Ramin really wanted to … go out with him, or whatever you would call it? Were they a couple already, or weren't they?

He did not have a clue what to do. He felt completely out of his depths in this whole big _relationship _thing. He was sure that he was in love with Ramin, and he wanted to be his boyfriend, but how on earth to manage it?

"So … um … did you sleep well?" he asked when he couldn't stand the silence any longer, and immediately felt his face flush. Was there any way he could have asked a more stupid question?

Ramin looked over at him, smiling. "Yeah, I did." And then, as though he sensed Martin's embarrassment, he asked, with his typical Ramin-ish grin on his face: "Are things awkward between us?"

"Um… maybe a little," Martin admitted, smiling tentatively, still kneading his fingers nervously.

"Okay, well, then let's make the awkwardness go away," Ramin smiled, and Martin looked over at him, half anticipating, half dreading his next words.

"I'm in love with you, Martin. I had the time of my life last night and I'm really, really glad that you seem to like me as well." He smiled. "And I want to be your boyfriend."

Martin looked into Ramin's sparkling brown eyes, and suddenly, the knot of nerves disappeared from his chest. Instead, he felt himself positively swelling up with joy.

"I'm in love with you, too," he said, and it was amazing how easy it suddenly was to say it. "And I also want to be your boyfriend."

They beamed at each other, then simultaneously leaned forward and kissed again. Martin found that the more often he felt Ramin's lips on his own, the more he longed to feel them again. He had by no means led a miserable life up to this point, but this was a whole new dimension of happiness, and he didn't think he'd ever get enough of it, now that he knew what it was like to kiss someone you were in love with, and who was in love with you.

When they broke apart, Martin leaned back into the cushions and laughed. He could not help himself.

"What?" Ramin – his _boyfriend _– asked, laughing too.

"Oh, nothing," Martin grinned, turning back to face Ramin again. "It's just, a month ago I didn't even know that I – you know, liked boys, and now, you're actually my boyfriend. I just – feel like I've been riding a Firebolt at top speed, or something."

Ramin was looking at him wide-eyed. "You didn't – hang on. You didn't _know_ that you were gay?"

"Well," Martin replied, shrugging, "no, I didn't. I never really thought much about all that before, you know? It's just since you came along that I sort of – had a real reason to think about it." He grinned.

Ramin smiled back, although he still looked amazed. "So I'm your first boyfriend, then?" he asked.

"My first everything, basically," Martin replied. "My first best friend, the first one who gave me the chance to fly, and now my first boyfriend."

There was silence for a moment, while they simply looked at each other. Then, Ramin said, quietly: "Wow, Martin, I'm … really honoured."

Martin laughed. "_I'm _really lucky! Just think what would have happened if you'd found somewhere else to sit on the Hogwarts Express before coming to my compartment. You'd be holding … I don't know, Lee Jordan's hand or something now and I wouldn't know you beyond the best non-verbal-spells-caster and the worst potion brewer in classes!"

"Hey!" Ramin protested, but he was laughing. He knew Martin hadn't been serious. "But I _definitely _would not be holding Lee's hand. He's nice, but he's not you."

Martin blushed. "I'm not _your _first boyfriend, though, am I?" Somehow he could not imagine Ramin never getting off with anyone at his school in America.

"No," Ramin admitted. "I had my first when I was thirteen and my second when I was fifteen. Neither lasted long, though." He grinned. "Third time's the charm's what they say."

"Then I hope they're right," Martin smiled back, leaned forward, and kissed Ramin again. "But you knew really early that _you _were gay, then, didn't you?" he asked when they'd broken apart again.

"When I was thirteen," Ramin nodded. "I started to suspect when I was twelve. There was this guy two years above me … Quidditch captain and all, you know. And at some point I started to be a little more enthusiastic about him than everyone else." He grinned. "He wasn't one of my boyfriends, though. Straight as a broomstick."

Martin laughed. He was all of a sudden very curious about his boyfriend's experience that he so completely lacked. "But with your first boyfriend … what was it like? I mean, did you walk around the school hand in hand and everything?"

Ramin nodded.

"And what did the others say? I mean, don't get me wrong, I don't really care whether people will like it or not, but … I just have no idea what wizards' attitudes towards homosexuality are. I've never really talked about it to anyone before."

"Have you never had a gay couple here at Hogwarts?" Ramin asked, frowning.

Martin shook his head. "Not as far as I know. I mean, there must have been, obviously, but I've heard nothing about it."

"Well", Ramin shrugged, "some people mouthed off a little, but my friends were still my friends after I told them I was gay, so I didn't give a damn about the others, to tell you the truth. And the teachers didn't care. Or if they did, they hid it very well. My parents were completely cool with it, and after a few weeks, when the first shock had worn off, everything was pretty much exactly the same as before. But I never, like, looked for any hostile reactions, you know? Because I just don't give a shit what anybody thinks about my sexuality. And if anyone gets it into their head to give me a hard time because of it, they're welcome to try and see where it gets them. But basically, what others think about me having a boyfriend instead of a girlfriend is their problem, not mine. And anyway, I think there's more prejudice against homosexuality in the No-Maj world than in the wizarding one."

"Why's that?" Martin asked, frowning.

"Well", Ramin said, leaning back thoughtfully, "there are, like, what, seven billion people in the world, right? And the No-Majs think that they all belong to their world. So I guess they think that they can afford to be picky about things like skin colour and religion and sexual orientation. But the wizarding community isn't that large to begin with, and there are all these prejudices here that No-Majs don't have, against werewolves and giants and goblins and centaurs and Merlin-knows-what. And some wizards discriminate against No-Majs and No-Maj-borns. So I guess if they started to turn up their noses at things like religion and sexual orientation, too, there'd hardly be anyone left to actually _do _the discriminating, you know?" He gave a short, humourless laugh. "I'm not saying that we won't ever get any shit from other witches and wizards. There are always some idiots, no matter where you go. But I think it isn't a big, common prejudice here, like it is in the No-Maj world."

Martin nodded thoughtfully. It made him sad to hear that homosexuals like themselves seemed to be heavily discriminated against in the Muggle world, and even though he genuinely couldn't have cared less about John's and many other people's stares last night, he realised now that he'd been at least a little worried about having to face a similar kind of discrimination here in the wizarding world from now on because he was gay. But judging by what Ramin had just told him, this needn't necessarily be the case. Of course, things might be different here than in America, but if Ramin was right, there didn't seem to be an established prejudice against homosexuality in the wizarding world, at least.

"Well, I'm really glad that _you _don't seem to have anything against homosexuality, anyway," he grinned, and Ramin grinned back at him with that mischievous sparkle in his eyes.

"I'm also pretty happy that you don't seem to be disinclined towards it," he replied, and they leaned forward to kiss again. Martin closed his eyes in anticipation, expecting to feel Ramin's lips again any moment, when –

"Merlin's pants!" Ramin gasped, recoiling and jerking his right hand away from the sofa's edge, where it had been lying moments before and where there was now a long, slender, red-and-orange something that was flicking its tongue out at them.

"Achilles!" Martin groaned, half annoyed, half amused at Ramin's reaction. The snake must have slithered onto his hand, and without a warning, Martin had to admit that this might have been a bit of a shock. "Don't worry, he's not venomous," he assured Ramin, who was breathing rather heavily and staring fixedly at Achilles. "He probably just wanted to say hello. You should be flattered, really, Achilles doesn't often show himself of his own free will."

He picked up the snake, and Achilles promptly started to wind himself around his wrists. Ramin was looking at the pair of them, evidently not quite recovered.

"He's … your pet?" he asked, in a somewhat thin voice.

"Yeah," Martin replied. "I've got another one, actually. Hector. He's around somewhere, too."

Ramin threw a quick glance around, but Martin knew he didn't have a hope of spotting the dark snake in the only partly illuminated room, for the firelight did not reach into every corner.

"He's probably curled up in some pot or other," he said. "They mostly keep themselves to themselves."

"That one didn't just now," Ramin replied, but he was beginning to look at Achilles with interest rather than caution. "And here I thought you were a Hufflepuff, not a Slytherin," he grinned, while watching as Achilles wound his muscular body around Martin's hands.

"I _am _a Hufflepuff, thank you very much", Martin said a little grumpily, "or is everyone in Gryffindor forbidden to have anything but lions as pets?"

"Fortunately not," Ramin grinned. "Can you, like, talk to them?"

"No," Martin replied. "I'd love to, but I'm not a Parselmouth."

"Probably not the worst thing, though," Ramin said, watching Achilles with increasing fascination. "Pets are enough bother without them telling you why exactly they're looking at you grumpily."

Martin laughed. "Nah, I love the both of them. I've always wanted snakes. Have you got any pets, then?"

"Cats," Ramin groaned, and Martin was surprised to see him rolling his eyes. "Masses and masses and masses of cats! My mom and dad are crazy about them. They met when Mom's family put out notices, saying they wanted to give away their latest litter of cats, and my dad came to take one. He got the cat all right, plus a wife as a freebie." He grinned. "Ever since then, cats have been sort of sacred to them. We never neuter any of them, and they can hardly bring themselves to give away the kittens, though they have to at some point, otherwise we wouldn't be able to move around in our house anymore, it'd be too stuffed with cats. It's bad enough the way it is, though." He ran his hands through his hair in a desperate gesture. "I can _never _go to the bathroom at night without tripping over at least two cats, and when I get back, I'll most likely find some cuddled up in my bed. I can't _stand _cat-hairs in my bed!"

Martin stared at him. "I suppose I need hardly ask why you didn't bring one to school with you," he said dryly.

"Our common room is bliss," Ramin replied, falling back into the cushions and exhaling audibly. "There are some cats, of course, but compared to our house it's practically paradise and there are _none at all _in my dormitory."

Martin smiled. Somehow he found the idea of Ramin's home being infested with cats highly amusing. "I'll definitely come over in the summer, I've got to see the armada of cats," he grinned, and Ramin grinned back.

"I promise you'll be fed up with them within two days," he warned, then his eyes dropped to Achilles again. "Can I … hold him?" he asked, a little tentatively.

"Sure!" Martin replied, surprised, but pleased. "Here."

He held out his arms towards Ramin, who gingerly closed his hands around Achilles and pulled him from Martin's wrists. Achilles raised his head and looked at Ramin through his yellow eyes, then hissed and began to wind himself around Ramin's left forearm.

"He likes you," Martin grinned, watching them.

Ramin shot him a nervous grin. "Yeah?"

"Well, he's not slithering away, is he?" Martin grinned, and Ramin's smile widened as he looked down at Achilles with fascination.

"He's so muscular," he murmured, almost to himself.

"Just like his namesake," Martin grinned.

Ramin watched Achilles for a few more seconds, then looked up at Martin again. "This feels _weird_", he said, shaking his head, "but really cool. I don't think I'd mind having a few snakes in the house instead of those thrice-damned cats."

"And they never lose hair, either," Martin smirked, and they both burst out laughing. For a few moments they just sat there, next to each other, laughing, and as Martin looked at Ramin's face, so relaxed, his eyes sparkling in the firelight, a rush of affection and a sort of reckless daring washed over him.

He leaned forward, put his right hand on Ramin's neck, pulled him close, and kissed him, his fingers caressing his soft black hair. For a moment, Ramin seemed surprised, then he edged closer to him, and Martin could feel Ramin's Achilles-free hand on his back, pulling him still closer towards him. And then, ever so gently, he felt Ramin's lips parting, and the tip of Ramin's tongue gave his lips the slightest of brushes, like a very, very tentative knock. A shudder went through him. He opened his own lips, and their tongues met and moved and explored each other, almost in a dance, just like he and Ramin had danced last night.

It was the most _incredible _of feelings. Never, in his whole life, had he felt so connected, so attached, so utterly _one _with another person as he did now with Ramin.

After what seemed like ages, they broke apart and looked at each other, breathless and exhilarated. Martin's whole body was still tingling with this feeling, this inexplicable feeling which he couldn't put a name to yet. He just knew that he wanted _more_.

"Ramin," he began, and his voice came out as a hoarse whisper.

"Shush," Ramin hushed, his eyes overflowing with affection and tenderness. "Let's not be too hasty." And he pulled him close, his right arm around his back, and Martin cuddled up next to him, breathing in Ramin's smell of coco and cinnamon, and marvelled in the feeling of comfort and security and _rightness _that his boyfriend's embrace gave him.

They sat there in silence for quite some time, watching Achilles curling himself around Ramin's left arm and enjoying the fact that it was Christmas and that they were together. It was so comfortable, sitting there in the warmth of the crackling fire and feeling Ramin's arm around his shoulders, that Martin wouldn't have minded sitting there like this all day. The silence was not at all uncomfortable – on the contrary, it felt so _good _to be sitting there next to Ramin and knowing that he didn't haveto say anything, that the two of them were completely at ease without talking to each other.

Finally, though, Ramin broke the silence and asked, after looking around the room again: "Where's your father? Still asleep?"

Martin laughed. "Are you kidding? I don't think he's ever slept longer than seven o'clock in his life! He's over in the potion's lab, working."

"Working?" Ramin frowned. "But it's the vacations! It's Christmas! Doesn't he ever take a break?"

"Yeah, he did … yesterday. But today –"

"Today, the Boomslang skin had to be added to the Polyjuice Potion, otherwise it would have been utterly useless," Martin's father broke in, stepping out of the lab and closing the door behind him. "A potion as advanced as this one does not comply with such mundane things as _vacations_, however hard that may be for a mere student's mind such as yours to believe, Mr Wilkinson," he added coldly.

Martin felt a stab of annoyance. Did his father _have _to be like this, today, when they weren't even in a lesson, and knowing full-well what Ramin meant to him? He straightened up and opened his mouth determinately, intending to come to Ramin's aid, but his boyfriend beat him to it.

"Of course not, sir," he smiled sweetly. "And a very merry Christmas to you!"

Martin could only admire him for his self-restraint; his father was clearly taken aback. After a moment or two in which he seemed to be trying to decide whether he was being mocked or not, he apparently decided to let it pass and simply replied with a curt nod and a short, stiff: "And to you."

He then made to leave the room, but Martin's mind was set. Ramin was doing all he could, overlooking his father's hostility towards him in lessons and trying to be nice, and this was all he got for his efforts. It would not do.

"Dad, we've got some great news," Martin said loudly and took Ramin's hand in his own very ostentatiously. "Ramin and I are together now. Since last night."

He stared determinately into his father's dark eyes, which for just a fraction of a second flickered, and Martin thought he detected anger and – was it regret? – in his father's gaze, but then the black eyes were unreadable again, and he simply said, still very curtly, but at least with an effort towards friendliness: "I'm … very happy for you. Congratulations."

"Thank you, sir," Ramin grinned, his thumb stroking Martin's hand. Martin simply kept looking at his father, who held his gaze for another few seconds, then turned and swept from the room.

Martin kept looking at the spot where he'd vanished, and some of the elation he'd been feeling all morning leaked out of him. "Sorry," he mumbled, angry and ashamed. "When I was talking to him, he was fine with the idea of you and me, but …" His voice trailed off, frustrated.

Ramin shrugged. "Don't apologise. It's not your fault. And anyhow, he's stuck with me now, whether he likes it or not." He grinned. "He'll get used to me eventually, don't worry."

Martin simply leaned his head against Ramin's shoulder, whishing he could share his boyfriend's confidence.

* * *

They spent the rest of that day walking around the school hand in hand, talking, laughing and enjoying the Christmas decorations, even though Martin did fly about a foot into the air when Peeves suddenly blew a giant raspberry out of a suit of armour they were passing. Of course, Peeves also didn't fail to notice their joint hands, and he zoomed away cackling about _Snapey and Wilky!_, but neither of them cared. After all, most of their schoolmates had seem them last night at the Ball already, and they hadn't planned on keeping their relationship secret anyway. That night, they said goodbye with a long kiss and arranged to meet in the library the next day, for even though it was the holidays, they had lots of homework and practising to do.

* * *

When Martin arrived back in the dungeons, his father was sitting in his armchair, reading. He looked up as Martin entered and greeted him shortly, but then returned to his book. Martin hesitated for a moment, then he sat down on the sofa.

"Dad …"

His father looked up, reflections of the firelight dancing in his black eyes.

Martin took a deep breath. "Look, I know you've never … liked any Gryffindor student, but … I mean, I told you I was in love with Ramin. And I thought … I thought you were okay with it."

His father kept looking at him, unblinkingly and in silence.

Martin went on. "And I really … I mean, you're my father and I love you. And now I'm in love with Ramin. And we're going to be hanging around together a lot, and I just … well, I think it'd be … really nice if we – I mean the three of us – could be in a room together without … you know, all this … this bad feeling between you. And it's not Ramin's fault, Dad. You know it isn't."

His father's eyes were still fixed upon him. Martin swallowed nervously. He didn't usually try and interfere with his father's relationship to his students, for he'd learned very quickly that it was hopeless, but this was different. This was his _boyfriend _they were talking about.

"Please, Dad … can't you just try to be kind to him? For my sake?"

He looked at his father, waiting, half dreading his answer. Would he get angry? But this was too important to him; he _had _to make his father see, make him understand.

After a long silence in which they'd simply looked at one another, black into green, his father blinked and sighed. He closed his book and laid it upon the side table. Then he looked at Martin again.

"I will try, Martin. I'm sorry. I realise that this is difficult for you. But … it is not easy for me, either." His lips curled in a contemptuous smile that looked much more like a grimace as his eyes turned to look into the crackling fire, and his voice was full of bitterness when he said: "I am not good at being kind, you see."

"How can you say that?" Martin asked, aghast. "You've been kind to me my whole life!"

His father looked up at him again, and there was a very strange look in his eyes, full of tenderness, but also a sadness so deep that it chilled Martin to the bone. His father's voice was full of affection, but also almost pitiful when he spoke: "That is not kindness, Martin. That is love."

* * *

Author's note:

Well, here you are … again. As always, I'd love reviews.


	14. Chapter 13 - The Prince's Tale, Part One

Chapter Thirteen – The Prince's Tale, Part One

* * *

When the holidays were over, Martin moved back into his Hufflepuff dormitory. He entered it quite late in the evening after a long stroll around the lake with Ramin, and he found all three of his dormitory mates already there when he arrived. It was the first time the four of them had been alone together after the Yule Ball, and for a moment, there was silence while Martin stood in the doorway and the other three were looking at him. Then, Edward's face broke into a wide smile.

"Congratulations, Martin," he said, beaming at him. "I'm really, really happy for you!"

Martin grinned back at Edward. It was obvious that he meant what he said, and Martin suddenly felt a powerful rush of affection towards him. "Thanks," he replied, and before he could say anything else, Cedric broke in, also smiling.

"So am I, Martin", he said, "you two make a handsome couple!"

"Thanks," Martin said again, and added: "I think I'm not the only one who scored on Christmas night, though, am I?" Cedric and Cho had been walking down corridors hand in hand ever since the Yule Ball, too.

"No," Cedric grinned, and he got a glazed, far-off look in his eyes at the thought of his girlfriend. "It looks like it was a pretty productive night for romance altogether!"

"And what about you, John?" Martin asked. "Are you and Marietta going out together now, too?"

He felt a flutter of nerves as he turned to face John, whose verdict was the most uncertain of those of his three Hufflepuff friends – not that it was really important to him what John had to say about him and Ramin, but it would nevertheless make things a lot more comfortable if John was okay with him being gay.

However, John chose to answer Martin's question first. "No," he said, grimacing. "I didn't ask her out again after the Ball."

"Oh? Why not?" Martin asked, surprised. He'd so far had the impression that John and Marietta had got on pretty well together – not in small part due to their similar reactions to himself and Ramin coming to the Ball as a couple.

"Well", John began, a little hesitantly, "she's sort of – a bit bitchy about a lot of things."

"Bitchy?" Martin repeated, while Cedric laughed.

John went on. "Well, you see, she didn't like that I was there in red dress robes, because my red didn't match hers. She said that was gonna look stupid and that I ought to have checked what colour robes she'd be wearing before deciding on mine." He rolled his eyes. "I mean, as if I'd buy another set of dress robes just to please her, you know? And then, after … well, after you arrived with Ramin, she kept giving you these … these looks, as if it was just about the most disgusting thing she'd ever seen, and she kept asking me whether I knew anything about you two and whether I thought it was _appropriate_." He spoke the last word in a high, nasal voice that Martin supposed must be an imitation of Marietta's.

"And what did you say?" Martin asked, quite coldly.

John looked at him, with a rather embarrassed expression on his face. "I … look, Martin, I think I owe you an apology. When I saw you walk in together, I just … it completely blew my mind, like, you know? I was so surprised, because I'd never even once thought about you – or anyone else, for that matter – being, you know … I mean, _preferring_ boys."

"It's called being gay, John," Edward interrupted, frowning at John. "It's not an Unforgivable Curse, you know. It's okay to say it."

"Right," John said, still looking at Martin, who held his gaze determinately, still not quite knowing what was coming. Was John going to make a big deal out of this or not?

"Well, anyway, because I was so surprised, I'm afraid I said some stupid things. But when Marietta just wouldn't stop going on about it, I started to realise that I didn't like those looks she kept giving you at all, you know? Like you were … I don't know, a pair of Blast-Ended Skrewts or something. And at one point, I just had enough and I told her you were my friend and that I didn't care who you went out with and that I'd rather be here with some boy tonight than with her, too, if she was gonna keep bitching around like that, and then she just turned around and left me standing there! Not that I was sorry, you know, I asked some girls from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang to dance afterwards and they were loads more fun than her. But, just, I'm sorry for what I said, you know? And I really haven't got a problem with you … being gay." His voice shook slightly on the last word. He stood there, still looking at Martin, and Martin had a sudden mental image of an accused in a courtroom, waiting for the jury to pronounce judgement.

He looked back at John for a few more seconds, then he smiled. "Fair enough," he grinned. "I suppose what you told Marietta makes up for anything you said earlier in the evening."

John's face broke into a relieved smile, and he hurried forward and shook Martin's hand. "Watch out for Marietta, though," he said warningly. "I reckon she's really got it in for you. And there are bound to be others, don't you think?"

"I don't care," Martin said, pulling on his pyjamas and getting into bed. "I'll be fine. Don't forget, my boyfriend's the best dueller in our year."

Edward and Cedric laughed, and after a few seconds – which Martin suspected he'd needed to get over the shock of hearing the words "my boyfriend" out of his mouth – John, too, joined in.

* * *

On the first day of the spring term, Martin fully expected himself and Ramin to be the number one topic in the school, and he was prepared for curious looks and a few stupid jokes. It might have happened, too, but for the article that appeared in the Daily Prophet on that very day, in which Rita Skeeter told the wizarding world that Hagrid was half-giant and claimed him to be _bloodthirsty and brutal_. After he'd read the article, Martin's hands had shaken with anger, and for the first time in his life he had felt such a strong urge to hit somebody – Draco Malfoy, to be more precise – across the face that Edward and Ramin had actually had to grab him and restrain him, lest he would have stormed right over to the Slytherin table and told his father's godson were exactly he could stick his _We-all-hate-him_-comment about Hagrid. That evening, Martin had wanted to go down to Hagrid's cabin to see how he was, but Ramin dissuaded him by pointing out that he, Ramin, did not know Hagrid at all and Martin, too, could hardly call himself a friend of Hagrid's. "I don't think he'll want to talk to anyone now except his close friends," Ramin had said, and so Martin had given in, but he had sent Hagrid a letter by school owl that same night, telling him that he did not give a damn what some reporter wrote about him in the Daily Prophet, that he was one of the nicest people Martin had ever met and that he hoped that Hagrid would not let the article upset him too much. He did not receive an answer, and because Hagrid had also stopped giving lessons and was, in fact, nowhere to be seen during the next few weeks, the Skeeter-article was all that anyone talked about for days after it appeared, thus at least saving Martin and Ramin from receiving too much unwelcome attention.

Halfway through January, there was a Hogsmeade weekend, and although Martin wouldn't have believed it possible, it was even more enjoyable than the first one because he and Ramin were now together. It was amazing how different the village of Hogsmeade looked when seeing it while feeling Ramin's hand in his own, how much better Butterbeer tasted when he exchanged long kisses with his boyfriend between swallows. They had their drinks in the Three Broomsticks rather than Madam Puddifoot's, because he did not much feel like sitting in a pink room full of frills and bows all afternoon – he might be gay, but not _that _gay. Before returning to the castle, they bought a bag of raspberry-flavoured liquorice wands at Honeydukes and ate them from opposite ends, until their lips met in the middle.

To make Martin's happiness complete, Hagrid returned to work the following Monday and also sent Martin a reply to his letter, thanking him and saying that "it's good to know that no matter how bad it gets, there's always some decent folk who'll support you".

* * *

Overall, Martin was in an excellent mood when he descended the steps down to his father's rooms on Friday, muttering "Destination, determination, deliberation" under his breath – the next morning, they would have their first ever Apparition lesson, and he was really looking forward to it. But when he opened the door to his father's rooms, he did not merely find his father in there, reading or working as usual. The first person he saw after opening the door was Professor Karkaroff, the Durmstrang headmaster, standing in front of the sofa on which his father was sitting. It looked as though they were in the middle of a heated discussion, or at least Karkaroff did, his face flushed and agitated. His father, on the other hand, was looking rather coolly up at Karkaroff. When Karkaroff heard the sound of the door opening, he whirled around to face Martin, who froze in surprise.

"Um, sorry," he said, looking from his father to Karkaroff and back again. "Shall I –" _Come back later_, he'd been meaning to ask, but Karkaroff cut across him, looking livid.

"What are _you_ doing here?" he spat at him, and Martin instinctively took a step backwards, intimidated by the blank fury on Karkaroff's face.

"This is my son," his father said, his voice as cold as ice, rising from the sofa. "He is here at my invitation, which is more than I can say for you, Karkaroff."

For a few seconds, Karkaroff and his father looked at each other, his father with cold fury, Karkaroff with anger and agitation in his eyes. There was silence in the room, then Karkaroff blinked and looked away.

"Very well," he spat, striding towards the door and now completely ignoring Martin. "But you cannot avoid me forever, Severus. Sooner or later, we _will_ talk." He stormed out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him.

Martin stared at the closed door, mouth open in surprise. What did Karkaroff want to talk to his father about? Was it true that his father was avoiding him? Why should he? And why had Karkaroff called his father _Severus_? That sounded as though they knew each other quite well … But they had never met before Karkaroff had come to Hogwarts this year. Had they?

Martin turned around, intending to ask his father some of these questions, but stopped when he saw the expression on his father's face: it was still full of anger, but there was also apprehension and – was it possible? – a little fear. Martin was immediately reminded of that time earlier in the school year, when his father had seized his left forearm so convulsively and had refused to explain anything afterwards. The expression he wore now was very similar to the one he'd worn then. Martin's high spirits evaporated on the spot, and instead he could feel anxiety welling up inside him, just like in September, and the reason now was the same as then: his father's fear frightened him.

He hesitated for a moment, waiting for his father to say something, or at least to look at him, but he just kept fixing the door with this stare that so unnerved Martin. Finally, when he couldn't stand it any longer, Martin said tentatively: "Um, Dad … What – what was that about?"

His father blinked and seemed to return to the present. He looked around at him, and said: "I …"

He stopped, and his voice scared Martin even more than his face had done; it was strained and somehow pained, as though even this tiny word was causing him great difficulty to utter. He looked at him, and now there could be no mistaking it: the fear in his father's eyes was palpable, and there was also reluctance and something like regret, even remorse in his gaze.

All of a sudden, Martin felt as though the ground beneath his feet was shaking. Something was wrong, he realised. Something was very, very wrong indeed.

His father took a deep breath and seemed to steady himself slightly. He walked over to Martin, took his schoolbag from his hands and put it down upon the ground. Then he laid a hand on Martin's shoulder and led him over to the sofa.

"Sit," he said quietly, in a tone that was most unlike his usual sharp and certain voice. He sounded tired and suddenly much older than his thirty-five years.

Martin sat and looked up at his father, his fear swelling inside him like a balloon. His father looked at him for a few more seconds, then, as though their eye contact was suddenly too much for him, he strode over towards the fireplace and stopped there, nervously drumming his fingers on the mantelpiece. Then he looked at him again, and said in a voice that was still a little shaky: "Look, Martin … A great many things have happened over the last couple of months. I think in view of … of the most recent events, there are a few things that I … need to tell you." His voice was very heavy at these last words, as though each was costing him a great effort.

Martin sat there, staring at his father. There was only one thing on his mind: was today the day he was going to learn about his mother?

"I ask you", his father went on, in the same strained and pained voice, "not to interrupt me. There will be some things that will … shock you. You will have questions, and you have a right to ask them, but please, if you can, let me finish first. I shall try to explain as much as I can. Not all of it can be explained, I'm afraid." His right hand rubbed his neck subconsciously, and it was plain to Martin how agitated his father was. "It … won't be easy for me to talk about … some of these things. You have a right to know, however, and I cannot postpone it any longer. It is time."

A silence thick as dragonhide descended upon them as his father looked for words to begin his explanation of – whatever it was. Finally, he looked at him and began to speak, pacing up and down the room all the while.

"First of all, you know that during the war against the Dark Lord, I was a spy for Dumbledore."

Martin nodded, his throat feeling very tight, making it difficult for him to take proper, deep breaths.

"That is not the whole story. You see, before I became a spy, before I began working for Dumbledore … I was truly a Death Eater."

Martin's mouth opened in shock. His father looked at him with a tortured expression on his face, and even in Martin's state of numb disbelief, the overwhelming remorse there was impossible to miss.

"It did not last very long. I soon changed my allegiance. That is not an excuse, however. It cannot be excused. I should have seen the Dark Lord and his ideology for what it was immediately, but … I didn't. And because of that …" His father broke off, apparently unable to continue. "I … anyhow, let me try to explain why I became a follower of the Dark Lord. Again, this is not an excuse for what I did. But perhaps it will help you … understand."

He glanced at Martin, then looked away quickly, as though he was suddenly afraid to look Martin in the eye.

"Very well … you know, of course, that my mother – your grandmother – was a witch. But my father was a Muggle. And their relationship was not – well … it was _difficult_." His father's lips curled in a bitter grimace, and there was anger in his eyes again, an anger that seemed to be full of dark memories. "My father hated that my mother was stronger than him through her magic, and he constantly tried to establish his power over her. She was the only earner; he was unemployed most of the time. In fact, he was useless." He spat out the last word through teeth so tightly clenched that it was a miracle he could utter it at all. "They argued … all the time. My mother was trying to make it work, for my sake more than anything else, I suspect, but it was hopeless. He'd drink, you see. Then he'd come home and shout at her, for no reason at all, and sometimes …"

His face was white, and his hands had curled into fists, and it seemed to Martin as though his father was not seeing him at all, but looking back through all those years and watching his parents fight again, powerless to stop them.

"She could have stopped it, of course. She could have used magic against him, but she was not … not the strongest woman in the world." His voice was full of bitter sarcasm. "Mostly, she just cried. My father was never particularly kind to me, either, and when it became clear that I was also a wizard, he started to be just as unpleasant towards me as he was to my mother."

"He didn't _hit _you, did he?" Martin blurted out, unable to stop himself. In his head, he saw his father, a small boy, perhaps six or seven years old, being shouted at by a huge man with filthy, matted hair and stinking of beer. The thought alone made him shudder. How could any father treat his son like that?

His father looked at him, his expression impossible to read. "He tried," he said, finally. "Once. After the flames from the fireplace suddenly reared up high and burned the arm he'd raised to strike me, though, he did not try again. That was one of the strongest bursts of accidental magic I ever had. I was seven. After that, he went back to shouting at me, but he was too afraid to try to hit me again. He took it out on my mother, though."

Martin watched his father, pacing up and down, his face as white as a ghost's and contorted in anger.

He had not known. He had _never _known.

"The only thing that kept me going in those years was the thought of coming to Hogwarts. I was desperate to escape my home, my father, to escape the whole Muggle world, and the sooner, the better. And even after I'd left my parents and gone to school, every holiday in which I had to return there was … torture. I always counted the days until I could come back here, to the wizarding world. And it was not only the absence of my parents, the freedom of the castle that I so longed for. I had … hardly any friends in the Muggle world. We were poor, and I usually had to wear my father's old clothes. That did not attract too many children." His lips curled in a bitter smile again. "But my father wasn't a wizard, so there were no old robes of his for me to wear, and when I came to Hogwarts, I looked just like everybody else. I was Sorted into Slytherin, and there, I made friends."

He looked at Martin again, and Martin almost flinched from the intensity of his gaze. It was as if he was trying to look not only into his eyes, but straight into his heart, his soul.

"You must understand this, Martin. Almost all of the children I met in those days, those _friends _–", and this time he spat out the word like a curse, "became Death Eaters later on. They were mostly pure-bloods, from families of generations of witches and wizards, and they looked down upon Muggles and … those of Muggle parentage." His father spoke the last words with such pain and remorse that they went through Martin like a knife.

"I can see them all plainly now. But when I started school, there I was, a half-blood, desperate to escape everything to do with the Muggle world, eager for any connections to anything or anyone magical. I looked up to my housemates, I envied them, I idolised them. More than anything, I wanted to be one of them. And they took me in, accepted me into their circle as though it was the most natural thing in the world."

He was pacing up and down again now, hardly aware of Martin's presence as he re-lived his own years as a Hogwarts student.

"I joined them in anything they did, thrilled to be allowed along, prepared to do anything to prove to them that I could do anything they could, that I was ready to leave all of my past, my connections to Muggles and the Muggle world behind me. The things we did … they were harmless enough at first, but as the years went by, they became nastier and nastier. Even then, I saw it … and I _embraced_ it." His face was hard and disdainful, and his hands had clenched into fists again. "I went along with everything. I even instigated some things myself. We went after others, students weaker than ourselves, and taunted them, haunted them, bullied them. And I, oh, I felt so strong!"

There was so much contempt, so much disgust in these words that his voice trembled, as if he was unable to keep his feelings under control. Martin watched him, rooted to the spot, feelings of horror, disbelief, pity and affection battling inside him. He wanted to hug his father, to comfort him, to pull him from this abyss of dark and distant memories, and yet he was aghast at discovering that his father, his father whom he loved, his father who had never given him anything but love and comfort and a safe place to hide, had been the very thing in his youth that Martin so despised: a bully.

"I soon hungered for this feeling of establishing my power over others. All this time, all the years of my childhood I had longed to escape the tyranny of my father, and almost as soon as I arrived at school, I started to treat others the same way he had always treated me." His father stopped and turned, looking right into Martin's eyes again. "Do you see, Martin? Do you see how stupid, how cruel, how blind I was? I wanted to escape my father, and when I had, I started to become just like him. And when we'd finished school, my great friends and I all joined the Death Eaters."

His voice was shaking once more, and he took a deep breath to steady himself.

"That was where I met Karkaroff. Yes, Martin", he added, upon seeing Martin's eyes widen in shock, "Karkaroff was a Death Eater, too. After the Dark Lord fell, he kept himself out of Azkaban by turning many other Death Eaters in. He named many names, and the Ministry let him off in return." He paused, then turned towards Martin again and said, in a flat and dead voice: "He named me, too."

Martin swallowed. "What saved you?" he whispered, and his voice came out hoarse and scared.

His father looked at him for a few seconds, then he answered: "Dumbledore. Because by then, I was not a Death Eater anymore. I had turned spy about two years before that."

Martin waited, but his father just kept looking at him, now with an air of desperate sadness and the deepest remorse, and did not continue.

Finally, Martin asked, hardly daring to breathe and simultaneously dreading and putting all his desperate hopes in his father's answer: "Why? What happened? What changed you?"

His father looked at him for another long moment, then he sank heavily into the armchair and said, as though every word was an unbearable effort: "Your mother. She changed me. And you."

"So my mother … So she wasn't …"

His father's eyes snapped up to meet his. "No! No, Martin! Never! Your mother was … as unlike a Death Eater as it is possible to be."

Martin took a deep breath, and some feeling seemed to return to his numb body at last.

"She always tried to persuade me to give up my practices and my association with the Dark Arts, and on the day you were born, she made me promise never to let you get into contact with the people I then called my friends, never to raise you in the Death Eaters' beliefs and prejudices."

Martin swallowed. "Well, you kept that promise," he said shakily.

"Yes. I did," his father said heavily. "But even then … even then I did not turn my back on the Dark Lord. I only truly left the Death Eaters about two years later."

"And … why then?" Martin whispered, hardly daring to breathe.

His father was silent for a long time, then, finally, he said: "Your mother's death."

For a few seconds, Martin could not speak. Then, he asked, in a croaky voice: "My mother … was killed by a Death Eater?"

His father looked at him with an unreadable expression on his face, until finally he said: "For all intents and purposes … Yes. She was."

"But," Martin began, but his father immediately held up a hand.

"Please, Martin … I cannot talk about it. About her. Not yet. Please don't ask me to." His father's voice was pained and exhausted, as though he'd just been fighting a long, hard battle.

Martin looked at his father, wanting to argue, wanting at last to _know_, to understand, but upon seeing his father's suddenly so aged and tired expression and hearing the tone of his voice, he faltered. It was obvious that the subject of his mother was inexpressibly painful for his father, perhaps the most painful of all. And no matter what his father had just told him, Martin still could not help trusting him. His father's revelations had shocked him, made him sad and angry, but whatever his father might have been or done in his youth, he had never been anything but a loving father to Martin, and there was no doubt in Martin's mind that his father truly, deeply regretted what he had done. His whole manner while he'd been talking had convinced Martin of that.

"So …", Martin said hesitantly after they'd sat in silence for a while, "why did you tell me all of this now? What are these recent things that have been happening? Do they have something to do with … with You-Know-Who?"

His father looked up to meet his eyes again. "They have everything to do with him," he answered, still in that heavy tone. "Some of them you already know about. The disappearance of Bertha Jorkins, the Death Eaters and the Dark Mark at the Quidditch World Cup … And I don't know whether you've realised, Martin, but Barty Crouch has stopped coming to work. He was not at the Yule Ball and he hasn't been seen in the office since November. You don't know Crouch, but I do, a little, and that is not like him at all. Dumbledore believes there is something not quite right about it as well. And last night, someone broke into my office."

Martin stared at his father, startled. "What?"

"Yes," his father replied, his fists clenched again. "It might be nothing, it might just be Potter, nosing around as usual …"

Martin opened his mouth, outraged, but his father held up his hand. "I know for a fact that he was out after hours last night, and I am sure he's stolen Boomslang skin before. And the Gillyweed …" His father's voice trailed off and he was silent, lost in dark thoughts, before continuing. "Anyway, it was probably just Potter, but if it wasn't, if it was someone else …"

Martin watched him fearfully. He knew that his father kept some very rare ingredients to some of the most complicated potions in his office – Boomslang skin, for instance, was a key ingredient for Polyjuice Potion. Martin did not believe for a moment that Harry had broken into his father's office – after all, what would he need Polyjuice Potion for? But it had to have been someone, and if those ingredients fell into the wrong hands … Martin shuddered. Some of those potions had _very _nasty effects indeed.

"Martin, listen to me carefully," his father continued, leaning forward in his armchair and fixing Martin with an intense stare from his black eyes. "Each of these things alone might mean nothing, but all of them combined, and all in a relatively short span of time … all of these things point towards the Dark Lord getting stronger again. So much stronger, in fact, that something may happen very soon indeed."

Martin looked back at his father, his mouth suddenly as dry as the Sahara Desert. "You mean … You-Know-Who is coming back?" His voice was thin and every bit as scared as he felt.

"It is possible," his father replied, still not taking his eyes off Martin's. "I would even say probable. And there is something else."

"Something else?" Martin croaked. What more could there possibly be?

"Just one other thing," his father said. "Look."

And he pulled back the left sleeve of his robes and held out his inner forearm to Martin. And now he could see what it was that had shaken his father so in September. There, edged into his father's arm, was a skull, with a snake slithering out of its mouth like a tongue: the Dark Mark. It was not truly black, but still clearly visible, of a somewhat greyish colour.

Martin stared at it, unable to take his eyes off the Mark. He could feel his father watching him, and after a while he heard him say softly: "The Dark Lord burned this into every Death Eater's arm. Whenever he wanted to call his followers to him, he would touch a Mark, and all the others would burn black. After he disappeared, the Mark grew fainter and fainter, until it had almost vanished. But ever since July, it has been growing clearer again. It also twinges from time to time. Karkaroff feels it, too, that is why he is so anxious to talk to me. The Mark, more than anything else, is proof to me that the Dark Lord is growing stronger again. When this Mark burns black, every Death Eater will know that he has returned. And so will I." He made a fist with his left hand, and as the muscles in his arm tensed, the Mark stood out even clearer against his pale skin.

Martin raised a hand towards the Mark, then hesitated.

"You can touch it," his father said in a reassuringly calm tone, and Martin slowly lowered his fingers and brushed them lightly over his father's arm. He'd never felt it before, but now that he knew the Mark was there, he could trace its outlines, like fine lines on his father's skin.

"Did it hurt?" he asked finally, looking up at his father.

"Not as much as it hurts every time I look at it now," his father replied bitterly.

"Is there nothing you can do about it?" Martin asked.

His father shook his head. "Nothing beyond a Disillusionment Charm. But that is good, Martin," he said firmly, and Martin looked up at him in surprise. "This is a reminder of the terrible mistakes I made. I would give … _anything_ but you to rewrite that whole chapter of my life, but I can't. And neither can I make this Mark disappear. It is a spot that will never come off." His lips curled in a bitter smile. "Just like my past. I cannot undo it. All I can do is try everything in my power to make amends, to rectify at least a small part of the damage I caused. That is why I became a spy for Dumbledore. To make up for my mistakes, and to protect the people I loved – you and your mother – from the Dark Lord."

"But you could not save her," Martin murmured, feeling for the first time a pang of grief for his mother that was filled with the knowledge that she'd died a violent death, a death at the hands of the witches and wizards that his father had once been a part of.

"No. I couldn't," his father agreed, equally quietly and with so much grief and remorse in his tone that it was almost unbearable.

There was silence. Martin sat there, still looking at the ugly Mark on his beloved father's arm, and contemplated all that his father had told him.

After a long time, his father spoke again, in a shaky voice filled with fear: "That is all, Martin. All that I can tell you for now. There are still some other things, but those you must not know. Not yet. For … for your own safety."

Martin looked into his father's eyes, and a wave of fear washed over him at the apprehensive and frightened look he found there. He did not press his father. It had already been so much, and if this missing piece of information was enough to terrify his father like that, then he would rather not know what it was.

"Well? What do you say?" his father asked finally, and his voice shook.

Martin looked up at him, still feeling numb with shock and fright. What _did _he feel? Everything was so tangled within him that it took him some time to answer.

"I feel … sad," he replied slowly. "For all the people who suffered under the Death Eaters, for all the children you bullied, for everyone who was killed or lost family members. I'm sad that you ever supported Muggle suppression, and that you ever joined the Death Eaters. I'm angry and disappointed that you did not tell me this before. I've been old enough for some time. I could have coped with it. You should have trusted me."

His father was watching him unblinkingly, never taking his eyes off Martin's.

He took a deep breath. "But I also feel sad for you. I wish you'd had a better childhood, like the one you've given me. I wish my mother had survived. I wish we could have lived together, the three of us, as a family."

His father's eyes were swimming with tears now, but he made no move to wipe them away. He just kept looking at Martin, who could feel his throat growing tight again.

"I wish you'd never been a Death Eater, I wish you'd never done all those things. But I know that no one wishes this more than you do. And like you said, no one can change the past. You haven't been a Death Eater for fifteen years. You've never been anything to me but the best father I could ever have wanted. I love you."

He swallowed, and his voice threatened to fail him.

"I'm scared," he whispered, and he could feel tears welling up in his own eyes now. "I'm not a fighter. I don't know what it's gonna be like when You-Know-Who returns. I never wanted to find out. But now … now I suppose it's gonna happen."

He looked at his father and suddenly felt just like the scared little boy who'd crawled under his father's blanket after he'd had a nightmare that Inferi were going to come and get him. "I _need _you, Dad," he whispered. "I can't lose you. Please … I haven't, have I?"

And as he said it, he realised that this was at the heart of all his tangled feelings; that even though he was shocked and disappointed and even angry, everything was overpowered by the abyss of fear that had opened up inside him at the thought of You-Know-Who returning to power, and his heart responded to this fear now the way it had always responded to it, from the earliest days of his life: no matter what it was that frightened him, his father would always protect him. A part of his world had been overthrown by his father's confession, but despite everything he had learnt, at the very centre of his feelings there was still the belief that his father was a good person at heart, and he loved him. If You-Know-Who really was getting stronger, he needed his father now as he had perhaps never needed him before. The idea of losing him, of an estrangement springing up between them because of his father's past, was more than he could bear.

His father opened his mouth, tried to speak, and failed. He cleared his throat and finally managed, very hoarsely: "Never, Martin. You will never lose me. I'll always love you. Never doubt that. Never. I'll … I'll always be there for you. I promise."

Martin swallowed and nodded vigorously. Tears were streaming down his face.

His father managed a tiny, watery smile and half raised his arms. Martin threw himself into them and realised, in some far-off corner of his clouded brain, that even after all those years and everything he had told him, the feeling of his father's tight embrace had not lost so much as an inch of its effect upon him: it still felt like the safest place in the world.

* * *

Author's note:

This chapter is based on _Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire_ by J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, London, 2000, pp. 377-415 and pp. 510-513, _Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix _by J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, London, 2003, pp. 521f., _Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince _by J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, London, 2005, pp. 593f. and _Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows_ by J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, London, 2007, pp. 532-553.

I'm sorry it took so long. I hope you enjoyed it, and if you did (and also if you didn't, really), please tell me so!


	15. Chapter Fourteen - The Second Task

Chapter Fourteen – The Second Task

* * *

During the next few days, Martin tried to think as little as possible about the prospect of You-Know-Who returning to power sometime in the near future, because every time he did, he broke out in cold sweat and felt sick and dizzy, as if he was standing at the edge of a cliff, looking down into a bottomless abyss. He did not discuss it with his father again, either, and though their relationship remained – to Martin's great relief – as close as ever, a new level of understanding seemed to have sprung up between them, perhaps caused by the trust his father had put in him and their mutual knowledge of the danger that might soon be facing them.

Martin had not told anybody else about the conversation he'd had with his father, not even Ramin. He could not quite put his finger on the exact reason why; it was a combination of his desire to push the whole subject as far away from himself as possible and a sort of feeling that this was solely a matter between himself and his father. It wouldn't even have been quite accurate to say that Martin felt that it was none of Ramin's business – for if You-Know-Who really did return to power, it would be every witch's and wizard's business – but he still did not want to tell Ramin about what his father had told him. After all, his father was also their teacher, and it was his right to keep the history of his personal involvement in the war against You-Know-Who private. And besides, the weeks since Christmas Day had been the happiest of his life, and he didn't want his and Ramin's time together to be overshadowed by the threat of You-Know-Who and a new war from now on. He simply wanted to keep enjoying the fact that he was in love, and that his boyfriend was in love with him, and not think about You-Know-Who and the Death Eaters and the Dark Mark anymore.

Fortunately, Ramin was an excellent distraction. They spent almost all of their time together, taking long walks through the grounds or the castle, writing essays on resisting the Imperius Curse or Golpalott's Third Law, a topic that drove Ramin mad, even though Matin couldn't understand why – it was all perfectly easy and straightforward, wasn't it? They had great fun practising the Aguamenti Charm for Professor Flitwick (and the Aridamenti Charm for drying off afterwards, after they'd had a water fight and had soaked each other's robes completely in the process) and – Martin's favourite thing of all – flying across the grounds on Ramin's broomstick. Martin hadn't yet ridden it alone, because he had lost all of his desire to do so. He much preferred soaring through the air while holding on tightly to Ramin and pressing his nose into his coconut- and cinnamon-scented robes. The only downside was that there wasn't enough room for them to kiss in the air, because Ramin couldn't turn around far enough with Martin sitting so close behind him on the broomstick, but they more than made up for that when they were on the ground.

On the whole, Martin managed to shake off his fears and enjoy himself again in the days following his father's tale, and on February the fourteenth, Martin looked up from his breakfast to see Ramin entering the Great Hall with Fred, George and Lee. When he caught his eye, Ramin smiled at him, but did not come to sit with him at the Hufflepuff table as usual and instead joined his friends at the Gryffindor table. Martin thought he knew why that might be, and he was glad that he had remembered to make some preparations.

There seemed to be rather more owls than usual streaming into the Great Hall this morning, and although Martin never received any letters, he looked up eagerly this time. And sure enough, after a moment or two, a barn owl landed right in front of him in a flurry of feathers and almost knocked over his pumpkin juice. Martin quickly untied the card from the owl's leg, after which it took off again, and opened it. Inside was a picture of a forest with two people flying over the tree-tops, zooming in and out of the card on a broomstick. One appeared to be holding on to the other, and both of them had short hair. Above them, the words _Happy Valentine's Day _were flashing in different colours. Martin looked down at the card for a few seconds, grinning happily and feeling his cheeks growing slightly warm.

"What have you got there, Martin?" John asked him from across the table.

"Oh, nothing," Martin replied and looked up at him innocently. To John's right, Edward gave Martin a knowing smile, while to his left, Cedric was busy staring into a card of his own, caressing something on it with his fingers with a dreamy expression on his face.

"I think I'm done. See you later!" Martin said, and he put his card carefully into his bag and got up from the table. He looked over towards the Gryffindor table and saw that Ramin was getting up, too. He left the Great Hall and waited for his boyfriend in the Entrance Hall, grinning a little embarrassedly all the while. When Ramin caught up with him, they grinned at each other and kissed.

"Happy Valentine's Day," Martin said, still grinning.

"And to you," Ramin replied, also grinning. "I noticed you got a card," he continued innocently. "Who's it from?"

"I don't know," Martin answered, playing along. "It isn't signed."

"Funny, mine isn't either," Ramin replied in a politely puzzled tone.

"It looks like we both have a secret admirer," Martin said, grinning broadly.

"And that's no more than we deserve," Ramin answered, grinning back at him just as broadly, and he leaned forward to kiss him again. When they broke apart, their eyes met, and after a moment of looking at each other, they both burst into helpless laughter.

* * *

Ten days later, Martin was sitting in the stands that had encircled the dragon enclosure in November and that were now erected along the bank of the lake. Cedric, Fleur Delacour and Viktor Krum were standing next to the judge's table, with all the Triwizard judges – Martin noticed with a sudden surge of uneasiness that Mr Crouch was once again not among them – grouped around them. The stands were packed to bursting point; Martin was squeezed in so tightly between Ramin and Edward that he could hardly move his arms. A few minutes ago, Ludo Bagman had announced to the crowd that something of great value to the champions had been taken from each of them, and that the second task of the Triwizard Tournament consisted of them retrieving whatever it was from the lake.

Everything was ready for the task to start. Well, almost everything.

"What time is it?" Martin asked, cringing his neck into the direction of the castle.

"Twenty-six past nine," John answered after looking at the watch he'd been given for his seventeenth birthday in December.

"Where on earth is he?" Ramin asked, also staring hard across the lake towards the opposite bank. "You don't think he's chickened out?"

"No way," both Weasley twins answered simultaneously from Ramin's other side.

"Nah, this is just Harry's idea of making an entrance," one of them – even though Martin was spending more time with them now, he couldn't have told them apart if his life had depended on it – continued.

"Well, if it is, he's cutting it _very _fine," John muttered, glancing down at his watch again.

Martin was beginning to feel increasingly worried again. At first, he hadn't been quite as nervous as he had been before the first task, but even though Cedric and the others were not likely to encounter dragons in the lake, Martin was sure that _some _nasty things had to be lurking down there. The Giant Squid was supposed to be quite peaceful, but he knew it wasn't the only thing that lived in the lake. And adding to his worries about Cedric and the other champions, Mr Crouch's absence had brought the talk with his father back to Martin in sharp detail. _This is not like him at all_, he could hear his father's voice echoing in his head. Was Mr Crouch ill? But what illness could he possibly have to stop him coming to work for as long as three months now? Or was it something else, something more serious? But what?

And now it looked as though Harry wasn't going to turn up for the second task. But why, for Merlin's sake, why? Surely he had not _forgotten_, and judging by everything Harry had done in the last few years – getting past the obstacles guarding the Philosopher's Stone and killing the Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets, to say nothing of getting past a full-grow dragon in November – it seemed not at all like him to get cold feet and simply bale out. So what was stopping him, then? Had somebody taken advantage of the now almost empty castle and attacked Harry on his way down to the lake? Martin's stomach clenched uncomfortably at the thought.

"You don't think –," he began anxiously in a low tone, leaning closer towards Ramin, but at that very moment, Edward yelled: "Look! There he is!", pointing across the lake at a distant figure running at full speed towards them. And sure enough, as it came nearer and nearer, Martin could soon make out that it was indeed Harry. He looked extremely out of breath as he skidded to a halt beside the judges and the other champions, but otherwise he seemed unharmed.

"You see?" the twin who had spoken earlier grinned, and Martin leaned back, exhaling and relaxing slightly.

"Looks like we can finally get going, then," Ramin grinned, as Ludo Bagman lined up the champions along the bank of the lake and then directed his wand at his throat to make his voice boom across the stands.

"Well, all our champions are ready for the second task, which will start on my whistle. They have precisely an hour to recover what has been taken from them. On the count of three, then. One … two … _three_!"

The whistle sounded, and Martin cheered with the rest as he watched Cedric wade into the lake, then direct his wand at his face and dive into the water. Fleur Delacour and Viktor Krum had disappeared as well, but Harry was still standing there, waist-deep in the lake, unmoving.

"What is he playing at?" John said, smirking – it looked as though he still wasn't a great supporter of Harry's, even if he had given up his hostility towards him. Even Martin had to admit that he looked pretty stupid, standing there motionless in the middle of the lake. Laughter was ringing through the stands, but then, quite suddenly, Harry grabbed his throat with both his hands, and as if he had found something to encourage him there, he threw himself forwards into the water. The laughter died away as the students watched the now completely calm surface of the lake.

"What do you think that was about?" Ramin asked, laughing. Martin opened his mouth to say _I don't know_, but then he suddenly remembered another piece of the conversation with his father.

"_Gillyweed_!" he gasped and stared open-mouthed at the spot where Harry had vanished.

"What?" Ramin asked, frowning, but Edward gave a sound of sudden comprehension.

"Of course, that's it! He must have eaten Gillyweed! It gives you gills," he added at the still puzzled faces of Ramin, John and the twins.

"Smart move," Ramin said appreciatively, and even John gave a grudging nod, but Martin's brain felt as though it had been Stunned. Someone had broken into his father's office and stolen Gillyweed and Boomslang skin, and there was no denying the fact that Harry Potter had just used Gillyweed in order to be able to breathe underwater. Did that then mean that his father had been right after all, that it had really been Harry who'd stolen these things? But why would he have taken the Boomslang skin as well? Then again, who else would have needed Gillyweed – except for the other champions, but they all seemed to have resorted to other means of enabling themselves to survive underwater.

Martin shifted uncomfortably in his seat. His instinct told him that Harry wasn't a thief, but on the other hand, the circumstances did seem to be pointing towards him. What should he do now? Should he talk to Harry, ask him point-blank if he had been the burglar? But he hardly knew Harry, and he felt very uncomfortable at the idea of asking him such a question, knowing that it would invariably sound like an accusation – especially coming from him, the son of the teacher who was not only the victim of the theft, but who was also known to loath Harry. Should he talk to his father instead? But that would be pointless, since his father already suspected Harry anyway and had no doubt known what Harry would need the Gillyweed for long before today. Should he tell Ramin about it, then? But his boyfriend didn't even know that his father's office had been broken into, since Martin had not confided in him after his talk with his father, so what would be the point of telling him now?

Martin's head was swimming, but there was nothing to be done about it all right then. And at any rate, if the burglar _had _been Harry, then he could at least be sure that it had nothing whatsoever to do with You-Know-Who. Martin twitched his head irritably in an attempt to push all these disquieting thoughts away from himself and tried to occupy himself with the ongoing second task of the Tournament instead. Unfortunately, however, there really wasn't much to see except the completely still surface of the lake. After they'd all sat and stared at it for the best part of a quarter of an hour, Ramin voiced what must have been on many students' minds: "This has got to be the most boring way possible they could have designed this task."

"I bet it isn't very dull down in the lake, though," Edward argued.

"Maybe," John said, shifting restlessly in his seat. "But this Tournament is supposed to be for all the students, isn't it? Not just for the champions. And there's really _nothing _to see." He glanced at his watch. "And it's not even ten o'clock yet. Are we just going to have to sit here for another half an hour, then, waiting for something to actually _happen_?"

"Well," said one of the twins, leaning over to them and grinning mischievously, "we could –"

"– and we couldn't," the other twin finished. Even their grins were identical, Martin thought, amused.

"Because a whole crowd of bored students –" the first twin continued.

"– offers all sorts of business opportunities," the second concluded and fished a box of what looked like custard creams out of his bag.

"Fancy a cream, Martin?" he said, offering him the box. Martin hesitated, eying the creams apprehensively, but before he could say anything, Ramin had snatched the lid out of the twin's hand and clamped it back onto the box.

"Don't touch anything they give you, Martin," he advised him, and to the twins, he said sternly: "And you two keep your hands _off _my boyfriend, do you understand?"

"Just our little joke, Ramin," one of them replied, winking. "But we reckon we can try our luck with the other houses, we don't think they've been warned yet!"

The second twin and Lee Jordan each pulled a box of creams out of their bags as well and they made their way along the rows of students, apparently trying to sell their creams.

"What was that about?" Martin asked, bewildered.

"Well, let me put it this way," Ramin said, smirking: "If you like your body the way it is and don't feel an urge to sprout feathers and a pair of wings, I wouldn't eat anything Fred and George give you."

"What?" John asked, laughing.

"They're Canary Creams," Ramin grinned. "You'll turn into a canary if you eat one! Fred, George and Lee have been selling them in our common room ever since the first task. I guess they're after more costumers now."

"You'll turn back into yourself though, won't you?" Martin asked anxiously, as John laughed, apparently quite impressed.

"'Course," Ramin assured him. "It only lasts for about a minute."

"Sounds like a cool bit of magic, though," Edward remarked, and John nodded fervently.

"It is," Ramin agreed. "Fred and George want to open a joke shop after they leave Hogwarts. They're working on other products, too. They've got to be careful, though, 'cause from what I've heard, their mom will go nuts if she hears."

"Well, I reckon it's brilliant," John said and rummaged around in his bag for some money. "I'm gonna go and get some of those Creams!" And he hurried off after the twins and Lee.

"I guess we'd better keep an eye out for any food John gives us as well," Edward smirked, and Martin grinned and nodded. He didn't see why Mrs Weasley would be against her sons' ambition of opening a joke shop – he couldn't think of any job the twins were better suited to.

Because Fred, George, Lee and John had left, the three of them had more room on the bench now, and they settled themselves a little more comfortably in the empty space. Ramin put his arm around Martin's back and he leaned his head against his boyfriend's shoulder, watching the unmoving surface of the lake.

"I wish I knew what's going on in there," he murmured.

"They'll all be fine," Ramin said confidently. "After a dragon, a few Grindylows won't be anything more than a warm-up act for them."

"I suppose," Martin said reluctantly, wishing all four of the champions were already back on the lake's bank, safe and sound.

"Hey, I almost forgot," Ramin said suddenly, and Martin straightened up again at his boyfriend's excited voice, "I had a letter from Mom and Dad this morning. They've invited you to come and stay with us over the Easter holidays! What do you say?"

"Yeah, I'd love to," Martin replied, a smile spreading across his face at the thought of the whole of the Easter holidays spent solely in his boyfriend's company. "I'll have to check with Dad, but I'm sure it'll be fine."

"Awesome!" Ramin grinned, and Martin felt a rush of happiness as he looked into his boyfriend's eyes and saw his own excitement reflected there.

Just then, a loud _thump _to Martin's right jolted them out of their reverie: John was back and had dropped down into his seat. "Got them," he grinned, holding up a small package of Fred and George's Canary Creams. "It was a right hassle fighting my way through the stands, though. Completely _packed_, legs everywhere. I almost tripped over a Slytherin's foot. I wish I could have Apparated," he added in frustration.

"You can't Apparate inside the Hogwarts grounds," Edward said knowledgably, but John waved the objection aside impatiently.

"I know, I know, but I mean in general … we've been having lessons for a month now, and all I've done is turn and turn in front of that stupid hoop and nothing's happened. I mean, how much longer is it gonna take, the whole year?"

Martin, too, had not yet managed to Apparate into his hoop, no matter how hard he concentrated on the three Ds, but unlike John, he wasn't troubled by it. A month's worth of lessons was, after all, not very much for a branch of magic as difficult as Apparition, which even some fully qualified wizards could not always pull off. Nobody had done it yet, though Kenneth Towler from Ravenclaw had caused the first real excitement during the last lesson by splinching himself. Seeing Kenneth sway in his hoop on his left leg, with the right leg and two of his fingers still lying several feet away, had diminished Martin's enthusiasm for Apparition considerably, but even though he had no desire whatsoever to follow in Kenneth's footsteps and splinch himself during his efforts, he could still see the necessity of learning to Apparate eventually. But it was only the end of February, and the first test wouldn't be until the end of April, so he still had two months.

"John, you can't expect to be told how to Apparate and then simply step up and do it," Edward tutted, in response to John's question. "It takes practice and hard work! I'd be very surprised if many people managed it much before the end of March."

"Right little ray of sunshine, aren't you?" John grumbled, but just then, the Weasley twins and Lee returned, their boxes empty and their pockets bulging and clinking ominously.

"Sold out!" one of the twins announced jubilantly. "And a _massive_ list of orders! We're gonna have to work very hard over the next few weeks to fulfil all these demands."

Martin grinned and thought that he wouldn't have believed it possible to ever hear one of the twins say the words "work very hard" in such an enthusiastic tone of voice. They all squeezed together again to make room for Fred, George and Lee, and John took another look at his watch.

"Twenty past," he announced. "About time Cedric turned up again."

_About time all of them turned up again_, Martin thought, but didn't bother to correct John. Instead, he swept his gaze over the lake, looking for any sign of one of the champions resurfacing. He noticed that the noise level, which had been considerable during the uneventful waiting time, was dying down again, and soon there was nothing to be heard except the wind rustling the leaves of the trees in the Forbidden Forest and the gentle lapping of the water against the shore.

For several more minutes, nothing happened. Then, Edward nudged him. "Look, over there!" he said excitedly, and soon, fingers were pointing at the lake from all across the stands and cries similar to Edward's rose up everywhere as a silvery-blond head emerged from the depths of the water that could only belong to Fleur Delacour.

"Blimey, I didn't think she'd be the first one back," Edward said as Fleur swam towards the shore. Martin, too, was surprised, but when Fleur emerged, dripping, from the lake, it was immediately apparent that something was wrong. The champions had been supposed to recover something that had been taken from them, but Fleur was empty-handed. Nor did she seem to be content with the result of the task. Martin was too far away from the judge's table to hear her across the noise, but he could see that she was gesticulating wildly and seemed to be resisting all attempts of Madam Pomfrey's to wrap a blanket around her. As he watched, she freed herself from the matron's hands and started back towards the water. Madam Maxime grabbed her by the shoulders and held her back, apparently with some difficulty.

"It looks like whatever's been taken from her is really important to her, doesn't it?" Ramin muttered. Martin agreed, wondering what it could be to make her so keen to return to the ice-cold waters of the lake to retrieve it. But just then, shouts of excitement and delight rose up from every corner of the stands as another two heads appeared in the middle of the lake. One was clearly Cedric's, but the other had long, black hair and could therefore belong to neither Harry nor Viktor Krum. In fact, as both figures began to swim towards the shore, Martin thought that it looked uncannily like …

"Cho Chang?" John asked, disbelief edged all over his voice. "What in the name of Merlin is _she _doing down there?"

Martin felt as though he, too, had been doused in icy lake water. "_That's _what was taken from the champions?" he gasped, horrified. "A _person_?"

"_Something of great value_," Edward repeated Bagman's words, "of course! It wasn't a possession at all – it was one of their friends or their partner!"

Martin suddenly felt very dizzy, and he was sure that his face was chalk-white. "That's sick," he muttered as Cedric and Cho clambered ashore. "They took four people and held them hostage down in the lake?"

"I'm sure they were told what was going to happen, and they were probably enchanted so they didn't feel a thing," Ramin said bracingly, but this did not sooth Martin. He'd thought that after the dragons, it couldn't possibly get any worse, but this was a whole new level of low. What had the judges done, sat down and mused about whom each of the four champions would miss the most? And what had the champions been told? Had they been led to believe that their hostage was truly in danger? Martin shuddered at the thought. He'd _never _have believed it of Dumbledore.

"No wonder Fleur wants to go back in," he said quietly, and he was so shocked that he didn't even join in the cheers at Cedric's safe and quick return.

Next, Viktor Krum emerged from the water with Hermione Granger, which took Martin aback even despite his state of numb disbelief. Things between them had to be more serious than he had realised.

After Krum and Hermione had been wrapped tightly into blankets, the surface of the lake remained still for several minutes. Martin looked down at the judge's table. Cedric, Cho, Krum and Hermione were all sitting there, huddled in their blankets, Madam Pomfrey bustling about between them. Dumbledore, Bagman, Karkaroff and Percy Weasley, who appeared to be filling in for Mr Crouch, were standing at the lake's bank, watching the surface of the water, while Madam Maxime was still restraining Fleur from diving back into the lake. Martin expected to see Harry and his hostage emerge from the lake at any second, or else somebody to do something to retrieve Fleur's hostage, but when the wait stretched on and on, he was beginning to feel really worried again.

"I hope nothing's happened to them," he said anxiously. "Surely they ought to be back by now. John, what time is it?"

"Gone a quarter to eleven," he replied, and Martin's stomach twisted uncomfortably, but after another moment or two, shouts rose up from the stands once more and Martin, too, jumped to his feet as he realised that there weren't only two heads that had emerged from the lake, but three. Apparently, Harry had taken Fleur's hostage as well.

He was so relieved that everyone had returned from the lake safe and sound that he joined in the cheering and whooping as Harry and the other two, the twin's brother Ron Weasley and a young girl with silvery hair who looked so much like Fleur that Martin was sure it was her sister, swam back towards the shore and emerged from the water. Madam Maxime finally released Fleur, who hugged her sister fiercely as Harry and Ron, too, were attended to by Madam Pomfrey. Meanwhile, Professor Dumbledore crouched at the lake's bank, and it was only then that Martin realised that several merpeople had also emerged from the depths – because of their green hair that blended perfectly with the water, he hadn't noticed them before. As he watched, Dumbledore appeared to be talking to one of the merpersons. After a few minutes of what looked like an intense conversation, he straightened up again and all the judges huddled together, presumably discussing the marks. Finally, when all the champions and hostages had been cared for, Ludo Bagman's voice boomed across the stands again and everyone went quiet. Bagman went on to announce marks out of fifty for each of the champions, giving Fleur twenty-five, Cedric forty-seven, which made all the students cheer wildly, Krum forty and Harry forty-five points. Martin cheered for Harry, too, which earned him a filthy look from John, but Martin agreed wholeheartedly with Bagman's opinion that Harry had shown moral fibre by insisting that he bring all the hostages back with him and felt he deserved every single point he'd been awarded. Bagman finished by announcing that the final task would take place on the twenty-fourth of June, giving them all a four-months break from the Tournament.

Even though Martin was still shocked at the taking of actual hostages for the second task, he could not help a smile spreading across his face as he walked back towards the castle with his friends. He now had four months to spend on nothing but school, his friends and his boyfriend. After all his worries about the Tournament and You-Know-Who, he thought that he had never before appreciated just how cheering the prospect of ordinary life could be.

* * *

Author's note:

This chapter is based on _Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire_ by J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, London, 2000, pp. 427-441. Everything Ludo Bagman says in this chapter is quoted, directly and indirectly, from this source.

My favourite series Downton Abbey has once again been an inspiration for a scene in this chapter: the talk between Martin and Ramin about their Valentine's Day cards is almost word by word the one between Anna and Mr Bates in the first episode of season four. This scene is one of my very favourite from the series, and I just couldn't resist adopting it for this story. All credits go, of course, to Julian Fellowes.

Once again, I'm sorry for the long wait, but I'm afraid this is going to be the rule rather than the exception from now on: this was chapter fourteen, and chapter sixteen is the last one I have ready to be beta-ed and uploaded at this point. As I have a lot to do at the moment, I won't be able to write as quickly or update as regularly as I would like. I'd be thrilled if you kept reading the story anyway, and I can definitely promise that the next update will always come. It may take some time, but it will come. And if you'd like to speed up the process, try writing a review. They usually motivate me a lot, and may prompt me to write faster ;)


	16. Chapter 15 - Seventeen and Adult Issues

Chapter fifteen – Seventeen and Adult Issues

* * *

Three weeks later, Martin woke up on Saturday morning to blink, not into the dim light of the sun shining through the hangings of his four-poster, but into an eerie, greenish sort of light that was throwing oddly shaped shadows upon the walls. It took him a moment to realise where he was, but then a grin spread across his face and he turned over in bed and closed his eyes again, even though he was wide awake now. He did not want to get up, not yet. He knew that his father would soon come into the room to wake him, and he was going to wait for that, just like he always did on one day of every year. He had slept in his father's bedroom rather than his dormitory tonight because today was the eighteenth of March, and it was Martin's seventeenth birthday.

He grinned into the cushion. A birthday was always great, but the seventeenth, the one that turned him from a boy into a man, that one was special. Cedric and John had already come of age this year and they had all celebrated in their dormitory together, but of course neither of them had been able to see their parents on their birthdays. He, on the other hand, had only had to walk down into the dungeons the previous evening to wake up in his father's rooms this morning. His grin widened. How he _loved _having his father close by.

He opened his eyes again and looked around the room. He didn't usually sleep in his father's bed when he moved into his quarters during the holidays, but in the living room on the sofa that they always transfigured into a bed. Tonight, however, they had switched rooms so that his father could prepare the living room for his birthday in the morning without waking him up. Martin held his breath for a moment and listened. Sure enough, he heard the muffled, but unmistakable sounds of his father's footsteps in the next room, growing louder and then fainter again every time he walked past the bedroom door. Martin was itching to get up and start opening his presents, but for as long as he could remember, his father had woken him up on his birthdays – or at least fetched him from his room, because Martin had almost always been awake already and had merely pretended to be asleep for tradition's sake. He closed his eyes and tried to doze off again, but his whole body was tingling with excitement and he knew it was hopeless to try and go back to sleep. So instead, he turned onto his back and looked up at the ceiling, trying to find something there to occupy his thoughts. His father's rooms were under the lake, and there were circular windows in the ceiling, almost like portholes, allowing him to look up into the greenish water of the lake. He let his eyes wander from one window to the next, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Giant Squid or a Grindylow, but nothing was stirring in the lake's depth. He huffed impatiently and looked at the bookshelves lining the walls instead, but he was too far away to make out any titles in the gloom and could not walk over to pull one out and start perusing it – if his father heard his footsteps, it would give the game away.

He turned onto one side and closed his eyes again. He wished his father would hurry up. He wished he knew what time it was. But just when he was starting to grow seriously impatient, he heard the click of the doorknob and a slight creak as the door was pushed open softly. He kept his eyes firmly closed and hid his grin in the cushion as his father's footsteps were growing louder. A moment later, he felt the mattress sag slightly as his father sat down on the edge, and then his father's hand was on his right shoulder, shaking him gently.

"Wake up, Martin," he said tenderly.

Martin made a great show of turning around slowly and yawning widely and pretended to rub the sleep out of his eyes with both hands. Then he grinned in what he hoped was a sleepy manner up at his father, who was smiling down at him.

"Happy birthday, my son," he said and leaned down to give him a hug.

"Thanks, Dad," he replied, grinning widely into his father's shoulder.

His father held him for a few seconds, then released him and considered him, his right hand still on his shoulder. He was smiling, and there was pride, but also a little nostalgia in his eyes when he said: "Well, seventeen. So now you're of age. I knew it was coming, of course, but it still feels a little strange."

"You'll have plenty of time to get used to it," Martin grinned. He had no time for sentimentality right now. "Can we go into the living room?"

"Whenever you want," his father smiled, and Martin hoisted himself out of bed, hastily pulled on a pair of socks and crossed the threshold into the living room, his father following in his wake.

His presents were on the table by the fireplace, along with his favourite chocolate and strawberry cake, on which halved strawberries spelled out a large seventeen. He looked at it all happily for a moment, then turned around and kissed his father on the cheek. "Thanks, Dad!" he beamed, and his father gave him another brief hug.

"Don't count your owls before they are delivered," he replied, eyes twinkling, and they sat down at the table, Martin on the sofa, his father in his armchair. He watched, smiling, as Martin swept his gaze eagerly over his presents, wondering which to unwrap first. His eyes fell onto a long, slender, rectangular parcel wrapped in silver paper, and he stretched out his hand and picked it up. It was fairly light, and with mounting excitement, he pulled off the paper carefully and took off the lid of the box that it had concealed.

He looked down at the box's content, his breath held. The watch that he had known to be inside it was silver as well, with slim straps, the circular face displaying the numbers from one to twelve in Roman numerals in a deep indigo, the handles light blue and also slim, with pointed ends that currently indicated a time of 7:43. With trembling hands, he took the watch out of the box and turned it over in his hands. On the other side, an inscription was engraved in slender, elegant letters: _From S.T.S. to M.S.S._

Martin looked down at it for a moment, speechless. Then he looked up at his father, who had been watching him all the while, a look of such tenderness in his eyes that it took Martin's breath away all over again.

"Well, put it on," his father urged him gently.

Still with trembling fingers, Martin turned his watch over again and laid the straps around his left wrist. As soon as the ends touched, they seemed to melt into one another, fastening the watch. It was neither too tight nor too loose, a perfect fit. Martin beheld it for a few more seconds, taking in its simple elegance, its plainness that did nothing at all to diminish its beauty. He had known, of course, that he would be given a watch for his seventeenth birthday and he had been looking forward to it. Never had he imagined, however, that it was going to be anything like _this_.

He raised his eyes to meet his father's again and tried to think of adequate words to express his feelings, but could not find any. The faintest of smiles was playing around his father's lips when he said, still in that impossibly gentle and tender voice: "If you want to take it off, just pull gently at the clock face and the straps will unseal. I had it made for you in Diagon Alley. I … really hope you like it."

Martin still couldn't say anything. But he didn't have to. Instead, he got up, walked over to his father and hugged him. His father held him, and for a couple of seconds there was silence, broken only by the soft crackling of the fire in the hearth. When his father finally released him and Martin straightened up again, his father's eyes were glistening. He blinked a couple of times, then smiled at Martin again. "Go on then, open the others," he said, his eyes twinkling again. "Or do you want to return them unopened?"

"No," Martin grinned and enthusiastically turned back towards his other presents. He unwrapped a book on antidotes to particularly dangerous poisons, a handsome eagle feather quill, a new silver knife for Potions and a large box of a selection of Honeyduke's most popular sweets. The last four presents were a gold lotus flower, a dragon's claw, nine long, thin, golden and white hairs that Martin recognised as those from the tail of a unicorn fowl and two grown unicorns, and a tiny bottle of an acid green liquid that whizzed and fumed inside its flask. Martin held the bottle up to his eyes and stared at the bubbling contents, a stunned feeling of excitement mounting up inside him that was overpowering all his emotions of happiness and gratitude and that was threatening to struck his mind dumb. Because if this was what he thought it was, then … But no. It couldn't be. It couldn't _possibly _be.

He turned his eyes slowly towards his father, who was watching him with a completely uncharacteristic smile that could only be described as mischievous.

Martin felt as though his heart was going to fail him at any moment.

"Is this … _Acrumantula venom_?" he breathed, not taking his eyes off his father, whose smile widened. He nodded.

"But …," Martin gasped, looking at the other three mysterious presents. Acrumantula venom was incredibly rare and very expensive. Even this miniscule bottle had to have cost a fortune, and unicorn hair, especially from fowls, didn't exactly come cheap, either. It was a curse every ambitious potion maker had to bite at some point, however, because along with a lotus flower and a claw from a dragon's left foot, nine unicorn hairs and Acrumantula venom were the key ingredients for one of the most challenging and complicated, yet also the most attractive and miraculous potions in the world.

Martin stared at his father again, his whole body tingling with excitement that was close to breaking point, his mind numb and still unable to believe that it could really be true.

"You're … you're letting me have a go at Felix?" he whispered, his voice almost too quiet to hear at all, as if he were afraid that to say it out loud would wake him up from what must surely be a dream.

His father's smile widened. "Your excellent performances in Potions throughout the year have convinced me that you are long since skilled enough to attempt a new level of complexity," he said, his eyes glowing with what was evidently anticipation. "I shall keep a careful watch, mind you, but I'm sure you are good enough to do the actual brewing yourself. I thought we'd start it here in the lab this year, and then leave it at Hogwarts during the summer holidays. As you know, we've got to let it st–"

The rest of his sentence was drowned out in Martin's cry of exhilaration, triumph and jubilation as he threw himself forwards into his father's arms. His father joined in his laughter as he held him tight, but also cautioned: "For Merlin's sake, be _careful_ with that venom or you'll have to wait another ten years before I can afford another bottle."

Even in his state of exuberance, Martin saw the sense in that and he disentangled himself from his father's arms and put the tiny flask back on the table with shaking hands. He looked down at all his presents and felt another surge of happiness rush through him.

He was seventeen, a man, he owned the most handsome watch in the world, and he would soon start brewing one of the most exciting potions there was, Felix Felicis, watched over by his father, the best instructor he could imagine. There was only enough of the Acrumantula venom to brew a very small amount of the potion, but that did not matter. Being given the chance to make it, to prove that he could brew a truly demanding potion, that was what counted.

Martin's face spread into a smile so wide that he thought it was unlikely ever to disappear from his face again. How he _loved _the fact that it was his birthday.

* * *

The rest of the day passed very satisfactorily as well. He spent the rest of the morning with his father and the afternoon with Ramin, who gave him a book about his favourite American Quidditch team, _The Manhattan Magpies: Mythos and Mastery_, with superb pictures replaying particularly spectacular goals or Snitch-catches. After dinner, he celebrated with his classmates in their dormitory, and they all teased Edward because he was now the only one who was still underage and would therefore not be allowed to take the first Apparition test, which was set shortly after the end of the Easter holidays. The thought of the test made Martin slightly nervous, as was always the case with tests, but he was nevertheless confident. During the last two lessons, he seemed to have got the knack of Apparition at last and had managed to vanish and reappear in his hoop several subsequent times. It was not, perhaps, the most comfortable means of travel – it rather reminded Martin of the first two Triwizard tasks, when the stands had been packed to bursting point and he'd been wedged in so tightly between his neighbours that it had seemed difficult to find room for his chest to expand wide enough to breath properly, too – but nothing else, whether it be Floo Powder, brooms, Portkeys or the Knight Bus, could match it for speed and flexibility, and it did feel good to know that he was at last able to do it. John had got the hang of it at about the same time he had, and Cedric had even succeeded two weeks before them. Edward was still having difficulties, but he wouldn't turn seventeen until June, so he still had plenty of time.

* * *

On Friday evening before the start of the Easter holidays, Martin went down to his father's rooms after he'd packed his trunk. The next morning, he would go back to King's Cross on the Hogwarts Express with Ramin to spend the holidays at his parents' house in London.

His father looked up from his book when he entered. "Are you packed?"

"Yes, I think so," Martin replied and picked up Hector, who was stretched out lazily across a couple of Potions books. "You'll look after them, won't you?" he asked as he sat down on the sofa and watched Hector winding himself around his right forearm.

"Of course," his father replied with a faint smile. There was silence for a moment as his father contemplated him, then he added: "Be sure to thank Mr and Mrs Wilkinson for having you."

"Of course, Dad," Martin answered, rolling his eyes. The gifts for Ramin's parents, a box of Chocolate Cauldrons and a bottle of Madam Rosmerta's oak-matured mead that he had acquired during their last Hogsmeade weekend, were, after all, stored safely in his trunk already.

His father smiled at him for a moment, then said: "Well, I hope you will enjoy yourself. But don't forget to do your schoolwork, even if it is the holidays. You are in the sixth year, after all. And if you need me at any time, just –"

"Dad," Martin interrupted him firmly, but with an amused smile on his face. "I'll be fine. It's only the Easter holidays. And I _am _seventeen now, after all."

His father looked at him for a few moments, then smiled again. "I know." He hesitated, and for a moment Martin thought he was going to say something else, but then he apparently thought better of it.

"Are we gonna play, then, or what?" Martin asked somewhat impatiently, and after another moment of looking at him, his father closed his book with a snap and laid it aside.

"Very well," he said, smiling and leaning forward in his armchair. "Let's begin."

The chessmen lined themselves up and they started to play. After an hour of intense battle, the casualties of which were a smashed knight and several beheaded pawns, Martin had suffered yet another defeat, though a very narrow one. One more move was all it would have taken, and he would have had his father's king trapped.

A glance at his new watch told him that it was late, and Martin disentangled Hector from his arm and stood up to leave. But before he had gone two steps, his father cleared his throat.

"Martin, before you leave … I think there is something I need … to discuss with you."

He sounded hesitant, reluctant, and Martin turned towards him with a plummeting feeling in his stomach. Surely there weren't more bad news? Not _now_, right before he was about to leave for the holidays?

"What is it? It's not … You-Know-Who again, is it?" he asked, and his voice came out small and scared.

His father's eyes snapped up to meet his, and he was quite plainly taken aback. "No! No, it's … nothing like that," he replied, and Martin exhaled, relieved. His father still looked anxious, however. Martin sank down upon the sofa again.

"Well, what then?" he asked, genuinely puzzled.

His father twisted his hands nervously, not meeting his eyes. He seemed to be looking for a way to begin. Martin wondered what in Merlin's name could be the matter. Then, finally, his father looked up at him again.

"Well, Martin, you are, as you said yourself, seventeen now and … now you are going to spend the holidays with … your boyfriend."

"Yes," Martin said, still thoroughly bewildered and waiting for his father's point.

His father looked at him with something that might have been a pained smile, but came across much more like a grimace. He did not blush, exactly, but there was a bit more colour than usual in his father's otherwise so pale face as he continued. "You are, of course, entitled to this. And also to do … anything else that you might … wish to do as … things progress. But since you are going to stay with Mr Wilkinson overnight, and presumably in the same room, I feel it is my duty to … talk to you about … certain things … first. Now, I do not know what you and Mr Wilkinson have been up to during these past few weeks here, and I do not want to know, but as your father, I –"

"Jeez, Dad," Martin broke in, and his face had tightened into an expression that probably resembled his father's very closely. _Now _he knew where this was going, all right, and he had no desire at all to travel this road down to its end. "We, ahh… really don't need to talk about this, all right? I mean, we're not … _doing _anything." His whole face was burning. However much he loved his father, _this _was not a topic he wanted to discuss with him.

"Be that as it may," his father persisted, clearly just as uncomfortable as Martin, but unfortunately he seemed determined not to let it go. "At some point, you _will _want to be doing something, and it is my duty to make sure that you're prepared –"

"_Please_," Martin pressed out through clenched teeth, and his voice came out horribly strained. He was quite unable to look his father in the eye and fixed his gaze on the flames dancing in the fireplace instead. "I'll be fine, okay? I mean … it's not like one of us is gonna end up pregnant, is it?"

He chanced a glance at his father, just in time to see his eyes flicker for a moment. The pained expression was back almost instantly, however, and Martin thought that he might have imagined it.

"Maybe not. But there are still illnesses," he pressed on relentlessly, "and I didn't raise you only to –"

But Martin jumped to his feet, completely unable to stand it a second longer.

"We're wizards, all right? We're gonna be fine. Really, Dad", he said with a note of desperation, as his father showed every sign of wanting to argue further, "can we _please _not talk about this?"

They looked at each other, and after a moment, his father's strained, yet determined expression melted at the sight of what Martin suspected must have been not so much a pleading as a begging look in his eyes.

"Very well. Just promise me you'll be careful," he said, smiling in a defeated, yet also somewhat relieved sort of way, and Martin exhaled, a bit of the tension draining from his body at last.

"I promise, all right?" he replied, crossing the few yards to the door in long strides. He wanted nothing so much as to get out of here. "See you at breakfast. Good night!" And as quick as that, he was in the corridor, pulling the door shut behind him.

Only when he heard the reassuring _click _of the door did he truly relax. He leaned his forehead against the blissfully cool dungeon wall and closed his eyes, taking deep breaths and trying to shake off his bone-deep feeling of intense embarrassment. He did not know how other families handled that sort of thing, nor did he care very much. He just knew that he never wanted to discuss what he was or – so far – _wasn't _doing with his boyfriend with his father ever again, for as long as he lived.

He remained leaning against the wall for a few moments, then he pulled himself together and started walking, very fast, towards the stairs leading up into the Entrance Hall.

* * *

Author's note:

I am aware that there are several Felix-Felicis-recipes on Harry Potter wiki and other sources, but none in what I see as the canon (the seven books and JKR's pieces on Pottermore), so I made up my own.

I really enjoyed writing this chapter and I hope you equally enjoyed reading it. As always, I'd be very, very grateful if you would let me know :)


	17. Chapter Sixteen - A History of Magic

Chapter Sixteen – A History of Magic

* * *

Only very few students left Hogwarts for the Easter holidays the next day. A mere twelve carriages were enough to transport them all down to Hogsmeade station. Apart from Martin and Ramin, the students returning home for the holidays were all fourth-years and below, and once they got onto the train, they split up into twos and threes and settled themselves in different compartments. Martin and Ramin had one to themselves again, and once the train had started moving, Martin pulled off his shoes, put his feet onto the empty seat next to him and leaned against Ramin, who put an arm around him. They watched the landscape whizz by in silence for a while, still a little sleepy, for they'd had to get up much earlier than they would usually have done on their first day of the holidays. The early morning mist had not quite lifted over the Scottish highlands, and the plains were shrouded in a hazy, silver-grey cloak. Martin felt Ramin's chest rise and fall as he yawned, and at an upwards glance he saw that his boyfriend had his eyes closed and his head leaned against the window, quite obviously about to go back to sleep. But even though Martin had not slept a lot the previous night and even though he was very comfortable, leaning against Ramin, hearing nothing but the gentle rattling of the train and the occasional creaking of the wagons at a bend in the tracks, he did not feel at all tired. There was an excitement bubbling in the pit of his stomach that had kept him awake half the night and that was now increasing by the minute as they got closer and closer to London and further and further away from the school. It was, at seventeen, the first time that he was going to spend a considerable amount of time away from his father. He had never visited any of his Hufflepuff dorm mates during the holidays. They had sometimes called at the Malfoys, but his father had always been with him on these occasions. The thought of spending the entire Easter holidays at someone else's house now made him nervous, and at the same time, he was really looking forward to it.

He shifted in his seat and accidentally nudged Ramin, who started and sat up a little straighter.

"Sorry", Martin said abashed, "I didn't mean to wake you."

Ramin gave another wide yawn, then smiled down at him. "Don't worry. I wasn't really sleeping, just –" he yawned again, and Martin grinned "– do-dozing, I guess."

Their eyes met, and after a moment of smiling at each other, Ramin leaned down and kissed him.

"I'm really, really glad you're coming with me," he smiled when they'd broken apart again.

Martin smiled back at his boyfriend, but he also felt another trickle of nerves at these words. "I hope your parents will like me," he muttered, trying and failing to keep his anxiety out of his voice.

"Sure they will!" Ramin replied confidently. "They'll love you! They're always happy for me to have visitors. In America, I had friends staying with me almost every summer."

Martin nodded. He felt slightly reassured, and from the way Ramin talked about them, it sounded as though his parents were very nice. Still, when he thought of his own father, he somehow could not imagine _him _being happy to welcome a friend or partner of his at their house for any length of time in the holidays. But then, it was a different matter because his father was also their teacher, Martin reflected. And what was more, not every adult in the world was like his father.

Determined not to let his anxiety overpower his anticipation, Martin sat up a little straighter and said: "Tell me about America. How was the school? What was its name again, I… something?"

It was the first thing that had come into his head, and he said it partly to distract himself from his feeling of apprehension, but as the words came out of his mouth, he realised that he was genuinely interested in the answer. He wondered fleetingly how he could have failed to ask his boyfriend this before, given that they had known each other for eight months now.

"Ilvermorny," Ramin replied. "Don't ask me why it's called that. It's a weird name, but it's a great school."

"Is it very different from Hogwarts?" Martin asked curiously.

"Funnily enough, they're very much alike," Ramin answered. "Ilvermorny was founded after Hogwarts, in the seventeenth century, and it was built after its model."

"Really?" Martin asked, surprised. He'd have thought that the Americans, who were usually trying to be as un-English as they possibly could, would have designed their school of magic to be typically American and not to imitate a British model.

"I know, it's shocking, isn't it?" Ramin grinned. "But Ilvermorny was actually founded by an Irish witch, Isolt Sayre. She never attended Hogwarts because her parents didn't want her to mix with half-bloods and No-Maj-borns. Her mother was a Gaunt," Ramin added at Martin's frown, and Martin nodded in comprehension. He still didn't approve, of course, but he supposed nothing better could have been expected of the Gaunts, who were not only one of the so-called Sacred Twenty-Eight, but also descendants of Salazar Slytherin himself.

"So they home-schooled her instead, but they still told her stories about Hogwarts. I guess they were mostly tirades about how No-Maj-infected the place was, but to Isolt, it sounded like paradise."

"So she didn't believe in her parents' ideals, then?" Martin asked, surprised, but impressed by the young witch's strength of character.

"No," Ramin replied. "Her parents practically imprisoned her in the house and never allowed her to get in contact with anyone but them. She hated it, and one day, when she was seventeen, she managed to escape and fled to America. There, she fell in love with a No-Maj and they had four children, two boys and two girls. They were all magical, and Isolt wanted them to go to school, but she couldn't go back to Britain because her parents were still looking for her over there. So instead of sending them to Hogwarts, she founded her own school in America and designed it to be just like the place she had always fantasised about as a child. For instance, the school building is also a castle, Ilvermorny's proper name is 'Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,' and there are four houses, just like at Hogwarts."

"Really?" Martin asked, frowning. "Are they also named after the Hogwarts founders?"

"No", Ramin replied, laughing, "I guess that would have been a little too extreme. Ilvermorny's houses are named after four American magical creatures: the Horned Serpent, the Wampus, the Thunderbird and the Pukwudgie."

"The _what_?" Martin asked, also laughing. He'd never heard of any of these creatures before, and the last name in particular sounded just as funny as those that were always mentioned in the magazine _The Quibbler_.

"The Pukwudgie," Ramin repeated, also grinning. "It's a sort of goblin, I guess. Anyway, I suppose you could say that the houses roughly match the Hogwarts houses: the Horned Serpent would be Ravenclaw, the Wampus, Gryffindor, the Thunderbird, Slytherin, and the Pukwudgie, Hufflepuff. They're not exact equivalents, though."

"Were you in Wampus, then?"

"Yeah, I was. But I was given a choice at my Sorting between Wampus and Thunderbird. It was my call to go to Wampus."

"A choice?" Martin frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Well, the Sorting Ceremony's quite different at Ilvermorny," Ramin explained. "The entrance hall is circular with a balcony running all the way around it, and there are statues of the four creatures the houses are named after in there. First-years step into the middle of the hall one by one and are selected by the statues while the other students are watching from above. For instance, the Wampus roars when it wants you, and the Thunderbird beats its wings."

"And if more than one statue moves, the student can choose?" Martin asked.

Ramin nodded. "Every once in a great, great while, a student can choose between all four houses. It hardly ever happens, though."

"And you were given a choice?" Martin said, a little puzzled. After all, at Hogwarts, the Sorting Hat had needed no time to consider at all before he'd sent Ramin to Gryffindor.

"Yeah," his boyfriend confirmed. "They say Thunderbird's for adventurers, and Wampus for warriors. I'm sure I would have been happy in Thunderbird, too, but my mom was in there, and when I was given the choice, I thought I'd rather try something new."

Martin looked up at him and saw him smiling reminiscently out of the window. How different they were, he reflected, watching his boyfriend. If he had the choice between following in his father's footsteps or exploring an unknown way, he'd always pick the more familiar road. But Ramin was eager to see new things, to gain fresh experiences, to walk his own path. Martin could fully see why Thunderbird, the house of adventurers, would have offered him a place as well.

"I like the idea of offering a choice," he said thoughtfully, and Ramin turned away from the window to look at him again. "It shows that it's not only important what you could be, potentially, but also what you actually want to be." The latter was actually much more important than the former, he reflected as he said it.

"Doesn't the Sorting Hat ever ask the students what they'd prefer?" Ramin asked, sounding surprised.

"I don't know," Martin replied, realising that he had never considered this before. "I suppose he might. I was Sorted into Hufflepuff almost as quickly as you were into Gryffindor, and the Hat didn't ask me anything, but I guess if it's less of an obvious case … I mean, some people sit on that chair for ages and ages. I suppose they could be talking to the Hat about their preferences."

"I think they must be," Ramin replied. There was silence for a moment, then he asked: "What's the longest that it's ever taken to Sort a student?"

"Jeez, no idea," Martin replied, thinking that he'd quite like to know that as well. "If it takes longer than five minutes, it's called a Hatstall, though."

Ramin laughed. "Cool! Do you know any Hatstalls?"

"Yes," Martin grinned. "And so do you! It took the Hat a full five minutes and thirty-two seconds to decide whether to put Professor McGonagall into Gryffindor or Ravenclaw."

"Seriously?" Ramin replied, laughing. "How do you know?"

"I think Dad told me," Martin answered, shrugging. "It's common knowledge, though. I mean, everyone was watching."

"Weird to imagine Professor McGonagall at eleven years old, sitting on that chair with the Hat slipping down over her ears," Ramin mused, and they looked at each other and laughed.

"Not eleven years, though", Martin corrected when their laughter had subsided, "ten."

"What?" Ramin asked, startled. "But I thought Hogwarts took students at eleven! Ilvermorny does."

"Hogwarts does now, too," Martin nodded. "And it used to for centuries since it was founded. But Professor Dumbledore's pre-predecessor was one Phineas Nigellus Black. He was Headmaster almost a hundred years ago, and a pure-blood, of course. And in that time, anti-Muggle feeling was high among the pure-bloods. The list of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, those families of supposed pure wizard lineage, was created around that time. The Blacks were on it, and to separate wizards further from Muggles, Professor Black decided to accept students into Hogwarts a year earlier, at ten, not at eleven. Muggle secondary education usually starts at eleven, but Professor Black argued that Muggles come of age a year later than wizards, so it's only right for wizards to begin school a year earlier as well. Professor Black wasn't very popular as Headmaster, but many witches and wizards, and not only pure-bloods, felt he had a point in this, so the change wasn't even really opposed. When he died, Armando Dippet succeeded him, and he saw no need to change the new system. It was only when Professor Dumbledore became Headmaster and opposed the new rule that many people saw the problems of it, that it was a huge inconvenience for Muggle-borns, for instance, because they could not finish their primary education anymore before coming to Hogwarts. It took a couple of years until Dumbledore could change the system again, though. My dad's year was the last that started Hogwarts at ten, after that it was back to eleven."

"Okay," Ramin said, still sounding a little taken aback. "I didn't know that. Idiotic, really, to change a system that's worked well for hundreds of years, just because of a stupid prejudice."

"Yeah, I know," Martin answered. "But pure-bloods and Muggles, that's sort of a never-ending story, you know? I wish it wasn't, but there you are."

Ramin was silent for a moment, then he said: "That's a really big thing over here, isn't it? I mean, magical people feeling that they are better than No-Majs. That's also what the war against Voldemort was about, right? He wanted wizards to rule over the No-Majs."

Martin, who had flinched horribly at the mention of You-Know-Who's name, nodded slowly. Unwelcome thoughts were pushing their way into his head: the Dark Mark on his father's arm, Barty Crouch's conspicuous absence from work since November, the disappearance of Bertha Jorkins, the break-in into his father's office …

He could hear his father's voice echo through head, as clearly as if he was sitting right next to him: _Each of these things alone might mean nothing, but all of them combined, and all in a relatively short span of time … all of these things point towards the Dark Lord getting stronger again. So much stronger, in fact, that something may happen very soon indeed._

His throat tightened, and he suddenly found it difficult to breathe as the terror he'd felt when his father had told him that You-Know-Who was getting stronger again threatened to engulf him once more.

But he was on the Hogwarts Express with Ramin, they were on their way to London, and they were going to have a wonderful Easter holiday together. This was not the time to dwell on the possibility of You-Know-Who's return.

With an almighty effort, he forced himself to push away all thought of his father's revelations, and said in reply to Ramin's question: "Yes, he did. And that's what Grindelwald wanted, too. The last two really powerful Dark wizards both operated on an anti-Muggle agenda, and both had plenty of supporters. Anti-Muggle feeling has always been pretty strong among some wizards in Britain, I'm afraid."

"Looks like it," Ramin sighed. "To me, it just sounds so stupid! But then, perhaps I just didn't grow up with it." He gave a short, humourless laugh.

Martin looked up at him, frowning. "Isn't it as big a topic in America, then?"

Ramin shook his head. "Not at all. On the contrary, in America, there were always more No-Majs hunting wizards than the other way around."

"Really?" Martin asked, taken aback. "How come?"

"Well, there was this religious group called the Puritans", Ramin explained, "and they hated any sort of magic. They hunted down anyone who they thought was magical and did the most gruesome things to them because they thought there were in league with the Devil. More often than not, they just caught other No-Majs, but all witches and wizards had to watch out for them, because whether magical or not, you didn't want to find yourself cornered by a herd of angry Puritans carrying torches and wanting to burn you alive. Then there were these guys called the Scourers, who basically hunted down any criminal who was worth a handsome reward. They were wizards, but as time went on, they turned in more and more people to No-Maj authorities, passing them off as dangerous magicians. Sometimes the people they caught really were witches and wizards, sometimes they weren't. It made no difference to them, so long as the money was good enough."

"They turned in their fellow witches and wizards?" Martin asked incredulously. He was also shocked to discover that innocent Muggles had been deliberately accused of being magical just to provide these Scourers with a fat sum of money, but their own kind? That was yet another level of low.

"I know," Ramin said, grimacing. "Not nice. And then, at the end of the seventeenth century, there were the Salem Witch Trials, during which many witches and even more No-Majs were killed. Some of the judges were definitely Scourers, and after the Trials, many witches and wizards fled the country."

"Who can blame them?" Martin muttered, and Ramin nodded in agreement.

"That's also why many pure-bloods living in other countries decided against coming to America, and consequently, their anti-No-Maj-ideology never really gained much support there. The wizarding community tried to arrest and punish the Scourers who'd betrayed their own kind after the Trials, but it wasn't very well organised then and many Scourers managed to escape. They married No-Majs and passed on a belief that magic was real, but dangerous and had to be opposed wherever it was found. That was their revenge on their fellow witches and wizards who'd tried to hunt them down. That's why witches and wizards in America had to be really careful about keeping their magic secret, because there was always a danger of No-Maj descendants from the Scourers trying to arrest and punish them. Then one day, at the end of the eighteenth century, there was a huge leak about the locations of MACUSA, the American wizarding government, and Ilvermorny. It was a catastrophe, and afterwards, Rappaport's Law was introduced: wizards were forbidden to marry or even befriend No-Majs. They were to live completely separately from them, and there were harsh punishments against anyone who broke that law. It basically led to a complete estrangement of the wizarding community from the No-Majs."

There was silence for a moment, while Martin contemplated what Ramin had told him. "That's harsh," he murmured finally. He had never before considered that it was not only possible for wizards to feel unfriendly towards Muggles, but also the other way around. Then, a sudden thought struck him and he frowned at Ramin. "But didn't you say your mum's a witch, but your dad's a Muggle?"

"Yep," his boyfriend grinned.

"But if this Ra-thingy's law's in place, then how –"

"It was repealed in 1965," Ramin said. "In the end, there was no way it could be upheld. There had been mass protests for years, and there were so many problems. Take No-Maj-borns, for example. You could hardly forbid them to keep in contact with their own parents and siblings. And it wasn't fair to Missers, either, to keep them separate from the non-magical world because they'll always be considered unequal in the wizarding one."

"What are Missers?" Martin asked curiosly.

Ramin looked at him in surprise. "People born into magical families who can't do any magic. You must have heard of them before?"

"Oh, you mean Squibs," Martin said, comprehension dawning. "That's what we call them. Here in Britain, I mean."

"Oh," Ramin replied, frowning slightly. "I didn't realise there'd be a different term for that, too … But anyway, Rappaport's Law wasn't fair on Missers, and witches and wizards also just kept falling in love with their No-Maj neighbours or their local bakery salesmen or whatnot. I don't think there's a law in the world that was broken as often as Rappaport's, and in 1965, MACUSA finally saw sense. It was just in time for Mom and Dad," he smirked. "They met only a few years later."

"While your dad was trying to buy himself a cat," Martin grinned. "I remember."

"Exactly," Ramin replied. "But let's not talk about cats now, it's bad enough that we're gonna have to spend the entire vacations in a house full of them."

"I'm looking forward to that," Martin grinned, but Ramin only grimaced.

"Yeah, well … you are now. A couple of days in their company should cure you. Where's the food trolley?" he added, clearly determined to direct the conversation away from cats. "I'm starving."

"I dunno," Martin replied, looking down at his watch and once again feeling a surge of powerful emotion at the sight of his father's gift to him. "It should come by any minute."

"I hope so," Ramin grumbled, and at that precise moment, the door to their compartment opened and the trolley witch stuck her head through it. Martin sat up quickly and pulled on his shoes again, while Ramin was already ordering what sounded like half the trolley's contents from the witch. When Martin had bought himself some lunch, too, he sat down upon the seat opposite Ramin and looked out of the window as he ate, thinking about Hogwarts and Ilvermorny and pure-bloods and Muggles and Rappaport's Law, and wondering as the train approached London if Mr and Mrs Wilkinson really were as nice as Ramin had made them out to be.

* * *

Author's note:

Well, here you are … a new chapter. I'd be thrilled if it motivated some of you to (finally) write a review!

Almost all the historical information given in this chapter is quoted indirectly from what is now " ", in particular from the articles about Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, pure-bloods, Hatstalls, and the texts on wizarding America. Check these out for more detailed information, especially because Ramin wasn't a very attentive student in his History of Magic classes at Ilvermorny and got a few things mixed up: for instance, it wasn't Isolt's parents who forbade her to attend Hogwarts, but her aunt, who actually murdered Isolt's parents and "stole" her from their burning house. It is also untrue that all four of Isolt and James' children were magical: one of their daughters wasn't. There are other simplifications and inaccuracies in Ramin's account of American wizarding history; as I said, please check out the texts on for a full and accurate account.

The only term that I made up myself is "Misser" for Squib; I thought that as Americans have their own term for Muggles, they should have one for Squibs as well.

The other historical detail that I invented is the story about Hogwarts accepting students at ten years of age for a certain period of time, including the year of Severus, Lily and the Marauders. This is an interpretation that cannot by upheld when studying the books closely, but I still had to do it to rectify a major flaw in the timeline of this story: Martin was born on the 18th of March in 1978, the same year as the twins. That makes him two years older than Harry and places him in Cedric, Fred and George's year, all of which is very convenient for me in the writing of this story. Lily was 17, Severus was 18 when Martin was born, and somehow, I assumed that they'd both already be out of Hogwarts by then. I had already written ten chapters when I realised that the schoolyear 1977/78 would actually have been their final year at Hogwarts if they'd started at the age of eleven in 1971. For various reasons, I absolutely did not want Lily and Severus to still be attending school when their son was born, but if I had moved Martin's birth to 1979, I would have ripped him out of Cedric, Fred and George's year, which would have meant rewriting basically the entire story. So instead, I made Lily and Severus start school at ten, meaning they finished in 1977, which suits me perfectly. I apologise for going beyond the boundaries of the books in this point, but as I just stated, there was no better way. I hope you can forgive me for exercising the whole of my freedom as the author of this ff here ;)


	18. Chapter Seventeen - Muffliato!

Chapter Seventeen – _Muffliato!_

* * *

When they got off the Hogwarts Express at King's Cross, however, Martin learned very quickly that this, at least, was one thing he need not have worried about. As soon as they had heaved their trunks out of the train and raised their heads to look around the platform, they saw two people coming towards them through the steam of the engine: a tall woman with curly blond hair and an even taller man, who had long black hair and wore it tied back in a ponytail. Both of them were smiling as they hurried towards them.

Ramin grinned and hugged each of them in turn when they reached them. "Hi Mom! Hi Dad!"

"Hello, my darling!" The woman replied, and her smile lit up her whole face. "You look wonderful! And you must be Martin," she added, turning towards him, her brown eyes shining warmly. They looked exactly like Ramin's eyes, Martin saw, and her smile was the image of his, too. "I can't tell you how much I was looking forward to meeting you at last! Ramin's told us so many things about you!"

Martin laughed nervously. His cheeks felt a little warm. He made to extend his hand, but Ramin's mother had already stepped forward and gave him a hug. Martin was taken aback, but it actually wasn't even that uncomfortable. She smelled of oranges and he also caught a whiff of that coco-scent that he so loved about Ramin. After a moment, she pulled back and beamed at him, and he returned the smile, a little uncertainly, but also quite touched at the warm welcome.

"Thank you very much for having me, Mrs Wilkinson," he said.

"Call me Michelle, dear," she smiled, and before Martin had time to think about how many years it was going to take his father to offer Ramin to call him _Severus_, if indeed it was ever going to happen at all, Ramin's father had stepped forward, and he did extend a hand for Martin to shake.

"And my name is Philip," he said, smiling more with his grey eyes than with his mouth, but his whole manner radiated a friendliness that was impossible to miss. He was a big man, not only in height, but also in every other respect. He had a broad chest and a matching belly, but Martin would never have called him fat or anything of the sort. Though not short himself, Martin was dwarfed by Ramin's father as they shook hands. He had to be well over six feet tall, and his other proportions did no more than match this extraordinary height. Anything less would simply have looked wrong on him. His voice fitted his built exactly: full and sonorous and voluminous, and somehow musical even when he spoke. Martin remembered that Ramin's father was a singer, and it took no stretch of the imagination at all to believe that he was a very good one. "Welcome, Martin."

"Thank you," he replied, and only just stopped himself from adding _sir_. This man had such a natural authority about him that Martin couldn't help being a little intimidated.

"How was your term?" Ramin's mother – Michelle – asked, her eyes sparkling with happiness, curiosity and an almost child-like excitement. "How's Hogwarts? I've heard so much about it, of course, but I've never actually been there. You must tell us all about it, honey, and you, too, Martin! You've spent so many years there, you must know everything about the castle, of course! And Ramin wrote that your father is your Potions teacher! How interesting! I've never enjoyed the subject much myself, but –"

"Michelle, let the boys catch their breath," Philip interrupted, kindly and calmly, and with a bemused twinkle in his eyes. "They've only just arrived. I'm sure we can talk about all of this over dinner. Now, why don't I take their trunks –"

"Oh, no, darling, I've got them," Michelle interrupted cheerfully, and with a wave of her wand, she had reduced both Martin's and Ramin's trunks to the size and – apparently – weight of match boxes and stuffed them into her bright-orange handbag.

"I'm so sorry, Martin," Michelle said, giving him that smile that illuminated every inch of her face again as they began walking towards the barrier separating platform nine and three-quarters and the Muggle part of King's Cross. "I'm afraid I'm always doing this sort of thing! Talking too much," she added with a laugh at Martin's slightly puzzled look. "I hope I've not shocked you too badly, but there are always so many things to talk about, aren't there? By the way", she continued without waiting for an answer, and far from being affronted, Martin was relieved, for he wouldn't have known how to respond anyway, "we're going to travel to our house by underground! Have you ever gone on it before?"

"Um, no, m- Michelle," he replied, catching himself just in time before he could say "ma'am." "I actually haven't been to London very often." This was perfectly true. The only times he ever went to London with his father were once before every school year to buy his new books in Diagon Alley, and then on the first of September to board the Hogwarts Express.

"You haven't?" She asked, with genuine astonishment in her voice. "Oh, but then these vacations are going to be twice as wonderful! You and Ramin can go and see so many things here! The Tower Bridge and Buckingham Palace and Madam Tussauds … Did you know there is a magical section with figures of goblins and hippogriffs and dragons, and every Minister for Magic you have ever had over here, and even some Quidditch players? It's accessed by tapping the correct pearl of Queen Elizabeth's necklace with your wand …"

As they descended further and further underground, standing on stairs that actually moved by themselves, which made Martin wonder how on earth the Muggles had achieved this or whether a wizard might have had a hand in it somehow, she continued talking happily about all the magical and non-magical attractions London had to offer, her eyes shining with excitement all the while. She and her husband were standing on the step right below Martin and Ramin, and as Martin caught his boyfriend's eye, Ramin grinned and rolled his eyes, mouthing _crazy_ and giving his mother a pointed glance. Martin gave him a quick smile, but even though he was a little overwhelmed by Ramin's mother's habit of talking much and fast, he had still taken an instant liking to this warm, open-hearted and captivatingly friendly woman. As he listened to her enthusiastic explanations politely, Ramin's father was also watching her, a tiny smile playing on his lips. As they stepped off the moving stairs and turned a sharp corner, he put a hand gently on her back to guide her into the right direction, and even though Martin doubted whether Michelle had even really noticed her husband's touch, he found he was oddly moved by the familiarity and affection between them that this small gesture revealed. Fleetingly, he imagined his own mother and father being this comfortable with each other back when his mum had been alive, and the thought filled him with warmth.

They had to wait on the platform for a couple of minutes for the train to arrive, but the place was so crowded with Muggles that they couldn't talk about anything that was related to Hogwarts or magic. Martin didn't mind; he was too busy staring at everything that was happening around him: Muggles dressed in all sorts of clothes that ranged from neat suit-and-tie outfits to ripped trousers and sleeveless shirts, and there was even one young woman whose hair was a brilliant shade of green, and she had somehow styled it up into three spikes protruding from her head. Martin himself was wearing a baggy, hooded sweater and a pair of these typical blue Muggle trousers that he could never remember the name of, and he was relieved to see that nobody was giving him a second glance – but then again, he reflected, if you could wear three green spikes on your head without anybody batting an eyelid in the Muggle world, then the range of allowed outfits was broader than Ministry of Magic legislation made it out to be.

Martin rarely spent any time among large crowds of Muggles, and as he looked around the packed platform now, he realised that a few of them were holding one of their hands right next to their ears and appeared to be talking into them. It was only at the second glance that Martin noticed that they weren't actually talking into their hands, but into small, black things that they were holding in them. Martin couldn't make head or tail of this exceptionally odd behaviour, and he nudged Ramin and pointed surreptitiously at a man wearing a black suit and a tie and pressing his right hand against his ear, talking very fast into one of these black things.

"What is he doing?" He murmured to his boyfriend.

Ramin stared at the man for a second, apparently mystified. Then the Sickle dropped.

"You mean the talking?"

Martin nodded.

"He's telephoning someone. You see that thing he's holding in his hand? That's a mobile phone. He's probably talking to a colleague, or his wife, or something."

Martin stared at the man in disbelief. He remembered now that they had devoted a couple of lessons in Muggle Studies to methods of communication, and they'd talked about this _telephone_, but somehow he'd always imagined it as a huge device resembling a megaphone that the Muggles shouted into in order to bridge the distance between themselves and the person they were talking to. But the thing the Muggle man was holding was shorter than Martin's wand and no thicker than _Advanced Potion-Making_, and although it was obvious from the speed with which his lips were moving that he was talking rapidly, Martin could not hear a word he was saying over the general noise that filled the platform, so he couldn't be talking any louder than he would have done in a face-to-face conversation.

"So … you mean he's talking to someone hundreds of miles away?" He muttered, still gazing transfixed at the man.

"Well, maybe not hundreds," Ramin shrugged. "But thirty or forty, yeah, sure. Why not?"

There was a pause while Martin considered this. Then he finally turned away from the man and looked indignantly at his boyfriend.

"How come wizards can't do that?" he demanded. "How come we have to send owls, or use the Floo Network, or send Patronuses? How come _we _are the ones that can do magic, but _we _have to sit down and write a letter or send our head spinning to another fireplace, and Muggles can just stick a telebone to their ear and talk to people forty miles away?"

"Tele_phone_," Ramin corrected, grinning. "And I told you, No-Majs are geniuses! These portable phones are a pretty new development, though. Took them years to figure out how to do that. And we _can _use enchanted objects like mirrors to communicate. It takes a complicated bit of magic to pull that off, though."

Martin could barely make out his boyfriend's last words, because at that precise moment, the train pulled into the station, giving off a loud rattling noise. When it had stopped, multiple sets of double doors slid open of their own accord. Martin looked around in confusion, half-expecting to see a witch or wizard standing behind him with their wand outstretched, but there was no one but Muggles around him, carrying him with them as they boarded the train through the mysteriously opened doors. The train was crowded, but Martin and Ramin still managed to grab two empty seats and sat down next to each other. Ramin's parents, who'd got on ahead of them, were sitting a couple of seats away. Martin leaned towards Ramin and whispered into his boyfriend's ear: "How'd the doors open? You didn't use magic, did you?"

Ramin shook his head, grinning. "They're automatic," he whispered back, and, at Martin's bewildered look, added: "It's too complicated to explain. I dunno exactly how it works myself. Just think of it as No-Maj magic."

"That sounds weird," Martin grinned, and Ramin laughed.

"I guess. But it's still true. No-Majs might not have real magic, but they have pretty good substitutes."

And as Martin looked again at the man with the telephone, which he was just putting back into his briefcase, and as the doors slid miraculously shut again, Martin couldn't help but think that his boyfriend really had a point.

* * *

The Wilkinsons had a small, cosy-looking cottage on the outskirts of London that was covered in ivy. It bore no obvious signs of being inhabited by a witch, but some of the plants in the overgrown garden struck Martin as bearing a conspicuous resemblance to the less dangerous plants kept in greenhouses one and two that they'd dealt with in their early years of Herbology.

"Well, here we are. Home, sweet home," Ramin grinned as his father unlocked the door.

"Hardly," his mother laughed, cuffing him gently around the back of the head. "You've only lived here for five weeks before you left for Hogwarts in the summer! But Philip and I felt properly at home in no time, didn't we, darling?"

"We certainly did," her husband smiled and pushed open the door. "Come in, Martin! And make yourself at home."

Martin stepped over the threshold into the hall. There was a flight of stairs leading up to the first floor, but Ramin's mother called from behind him: "Just go right through into the living room, Martin!"

So he opened another door at the far end of the hall and found himself standing in a large room with light-orange wallpaper and a thick, fluffy carpet covering the ground. There was no actual wall at the far end, but instead two sets of French windows that opened onto the garden and through which light was flooding into the room. To the left, there was a table with four chairs and a door that probably led into the kitchen, while to the right, there stood a large, comfortable-looking sofa with a bend in the middle against the walls. It was dark blue and covered in orange scatter cushions, and there was a low, square coffee table in front of it. Against the far end of the room, facing the sofa corner, there was a chest of drawers with a most strange-looking device on top: it was black, large and almost square, like an enlarged dice, only without spots. The side facing the sofa looked as though it was made of something like glass, but it wasn't transparent: rather than allowing Martin to see the strange thing's interior, he could make out a blurry reflection of himself in the glass. He was just about to ask Ramin, who'd entered the room behind him, why Muggles used black, square, bulky mirrors that gave off such poor reflections instead of normal ones when another piece of information Professor Burbage had given them in Muggle Studies came back to him.

He turned to Ramin and pointed uncertainly at the black device. "Is that … a tele-mission?"

Ramin laughed. "You mean a television? Yeah, it is! How'd you know?"

"We talked about them in Muggle Studies," Martin replied, gazing at the television in fascination. "It works sort of like a portrait, right? Except you can't talk to the people in it."

"Something like that," his boyfriend grinned. "We can watch a movie on it sometime, if you like. Get _off_, you monsters!"

Martin looked around at Ramin, bewildered. It was only then that he realised that there were three cats padding around his boyfriend's legs, purring and quite obviously wanting to be stroked, and that the room was, in fact, full of cats. Martin's attention had been so focused on the television that he hadn't noticed them before, but he now realised that they were everywhere: on the sofa, underneath the coffee table, on the chairs around the dining table or simply curled up on the thick carpet. He tried to count them, but it was impossible with most of them moving around, roused by the arrival of two people. His best guess was that there were about ten to fifteen. A couple of them were padding around his own legs, and he knelt carefully and began scratching one of them, a small, black one, behind the ears. It purred loudly and pressed its head against his hand. It felt completely different to having Achilles or Hector wind themselves around his arms, but as much as he loved his snakes, he thought that having a few cats pressing themselves against his legs and purring as he stroked their soft fur was cool as well. He looked up at Ramin, who had not bent down to give any of the cats that were competing for his attention so much as a pat, but had instead made his way to the sofa, rudely pushed aside a brown-and-black cat and sat down.

"Why are you so against them?" Martin asked, shaking his head in bemusement and continuing to stroke the small black cat.

Ramin sighed and fell back into the cushions. "Because they're messy and annoying and never leave me in peace," he replied, but when a grey tabby who'd already been padding around his legs jumped onto the sofa and attempted to climb onto his lap, he just groaned exasperatedly before beginning to grudgingly scratch behind its ears. "You see?" he said with a painful grimace, but Martin was now certain that his boyfriend's tirades against cats weren't entirely serious. He picked up the black cat, who didn't seem to mind that at all, carefully stepped over two more cats on his way to the sofa and sat down next to his boyfriend.

"Well, I think they're really cute," he said teasingly, grinning up at him.

"Oh yeah?" Ramin replied, his eyes beginning to sparkle in that way that always made a firework go off in Martin's stomach. "Well, do you want to know who I think is cutest in this room?"

"Oh, give over, Ramin!" Martin grinned, feeling himself blushing slightly, but still meeting his boyfriend's lips enthusiastically when he bent down to kiss him. Ramin had just put his left arm around Martin's back and Martin was anticipating a proper snog when the living room door opened with an audible _creak_ and both their heads whipped around towards the sound.

Ramin's mother stood in the doorway. Martin's whole face was burning with embarrassment, but neither Ramin nor his mother seemed to be in any way abashed.

"Boys, I've taken your trunks up to your room, so you can go upstairs and unpack any time you want," she smiled. "We're having dinner early today so that Philip can join us before he has to go to work, and I didn't think you'd mind, because I don't think you had a proper lunch on the train, did you?"

Both of them shook their heads.

"Great," Michelle smiled. "We'll eat in about an hour, so you might want to unpack and really get settled in before that. And then we want to know everything about Hogwarts, of course!" And with that, she disappeared into the kitchen.

Martin could feel Ramin grinning at him, and he turned back towards him.

"What?" he demanded, though he was rather afraid he already knew.

"Oh, nothing," Ramin grinned, in a tone of mock innocence that wouldn't have fooled anybody. "It's just that you might want to consider switching house, that's all."

"Why would I want to do that?" Martin snapped, pushing the black cat off his lap and getting to his feet.

"Oh, I don't know," Ramin replied, and Martin could hear his ear-to-ear grin even as his boyfriend followed him out of the living room and up the stairs. "It's just that your head's a proper Gryffindor scarlet, that's all."

"Oh, shut up!" Martin retorted, but he couldn't help joining in his boyfriend's laughter as they entered Ramin's bedroom and began unpacking their trunks.

* * *

At dinner, it was mostly Ramin who told his parents about every little detail of life at Hogwarts. Martin did throw in the odd remark every now and again, for instance what the Hufflepuff common room looked like in contrast to the Gryffindor one, but he mainly listened to his boyfriend and learned a little more about Ilvermorny by way of the things that Ramin thought worth mentioning about Hogwarts. He talked very little about their subjects, from which Martin concluded that Ilvermorny must be offering more or less the same ones, but he told his parents at length about the castle's inhabitants other than students and teachers: Filch, Mrs Norris, the portraits, the ghosts and, particularly, Peeves. Ramin's mother and father were both greatly amused by their son's colourful retellings of Peeves's many mischiefs, and when Ramin recounted some of the lyrics of Peeves's version of 'Oh Come, All Ye Faithful,' which had sounded from what had seemed like every suit of armour in the school during the weeks leading up to Christmas, all four of them finally laughed so hard that tears were streaming down their faces.

"But seriously", Martin said when he was at last able to draw breath again, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, "why are you so interested in Peeves? Isn't there a poltergeist at Ilvermorny?" As annoying as Peeves was most of the time, Martin could not imagine Hogwarts without him.

"No," Ramin's mother replied. "Because of the policy of very strict separation of No-Majs and the magical world that was upheld in the US for a long time, having magical creatures like ghosts that can think and talk and move for themselves around was considered too dangerous, especially mischief-makers like poltergeists."

"There's an army of Pukwudgies guarding the school, though," Ramin grinned.

"How come they were allowed?" Martin asked curiously.

"Isolt, Ilvermorny's founder, saved a Pukwudgie's life once," Michelle explained. "Ever since, Pukwudgies have had a special tie to Ilvermorny. They protect it and they are also the school's maintenance service."

"Cool," Martin laughed. "Beats Filch and those Security Trolls and Dementors we had last year." And he explained how, in the months after the escape of the murderer Sirius Black from Azkaban, the school had been surrounded by Dementors day and night. A slight shiver went through him at the mere memory. Even though he'd always taken care to stay well clear of those horrible creatures, they had still given him the creeps.

After they'd finished eating, Michelle made all the plates and cutlery whizz back into the kitchen with a wave of her wand, and Philip said goodnight to all of them and left for the theatre in the West End in which he was currently performing. Martin, Ramin and Michelle spent the evening together in the living room, playing game after game of Exploding Snap and later two-on-one chess – Ramin and his mother against Martin. They played with the Wilkinsons' pieces, and although the chessmen were deeply distrustful of Martin at first, they very quickly realised that he knew what he was about on a chessboard and gave up their resistance to his commands. Neither Ramin nor his mother were that bad at chess, Martin thought, but the countless games he'd played against his father had turned him into a truly skilful player and he won without too much difficulty. After the game, both Martin and Ramin felt tired, and they said goodnight to Michelle and went upstairs to shower and get ready for bed.

* * *

Half an hour later, Martin was lying on his mattress in Ramin's room, looking up at the ceiling, which was painted a deep, dark blue, and contemplating that he had rarely been as content as he was in that moment, lying here next to his boyfriend and having the whole of the Easter Holidays in his company to look forward to. He shifted onto his side and looked at Ramin, whose mattress was lying right next to Martin's.

"Your parents are really nice," he murmured, already quite sleepily, and he saw the outlines of his boyfriend's grin in the dim moonlight that was shining through the curtains.

"Told you," he replied. "And they love you already."

Martin laughed softly. "And I like the house. And the garden. And the cats." He grinned widely as Ramin groaned. "Everything's so … cosy, d'you know what I mean?"

Ramin's mattress creaked slightly as his boyfriend turned onto his side as well, looking Martin straight in the eye. "Yeah, I do," he replied softly, and something about the low tone in which Ramin said these words pulled Martin's sleepiness away from him, as effortlessly as if it had been but a thin blanket. He was suddenly wide awake, and he felt goose bumps erupt all over his skin as he looked into his boyfriend's dark-brown eyes, no more than ten inches away from his own. He watched unblinkingly and with bated breath as Ramin slowly extended his left hand and cupped it around Martin's cheek, moving his thumb softly through his hair.

"And it's you being here that makes it perfect," he whispered, and Martin could feel his boyfriend's warm breath on his face as he leaned closer.

When their lips met, all other sensation was evaporated from Martin's mind. All thought, all feeling was blocked out; nothing mattered but that Ramin should continue to press his lips onto his own, to run his hand through Martin's hair, to sling his left leg over Martin's right one, intertwining them …

Ramin's hand moved from Martin's hair to his back, and he pulled him closer towards him, so that they were now lying on a single mattress, their legs intertwined, their lips locked together, and just as the firework in Martin's stomach reached a dimension that he had never yet experienced before, there was the loud _bang _of the front door closing, followed by audible footsteps climbing up the stairs. The boys froze, their faces turned towards the closed door of Ramin's room, both of them breathing hard, listening.

"It's Dad," Ramin whispered. "He's back."

"He won't come in here, will he?" Martin asked, at the same time terrified of being discovered in this undignified position and yet oddly indifferent to the possibility, more impatient than he had ever been in his life to get back to what they'd been doing moments before.

"No", Ramin breathed, "but he'll hear us. The walls aren't very thick."

For a fraction of a second, Martin was faced with the shattering prospect of having to _wait _for Ramin's father to change, possibly shower, get into bed, and fall asleep before they could continue, but then, an idea struck him like a golden beam of divine intuition, and he couldn't help himself from laughing out loud.

"What is it?" Ramin asked, apparently completely bewildered.

"Where's my wand?" Martin asked by way of a reply, looking around, and having located it on the other side of his now empty mattress, he unwillingly disentangled himself from Ramin and rolled over to reach it.

"What are you gonna do, Stun him?" Ramin asked, with a disbelieving, yet also slightly amused note in his voice, as if the thought was actually quite appealing to him.

"Don't be silly," Martin whispered back. He raised his wand, pointed it at the closed door, and, concentrating with all his might, murmured: _"Muffliato!"_

Nothing observable happened, yet Martin had felt his wand grow momentarily warm in his hand, so he knew that it had worked. He put his wand aside again and turned back to Ramin's puzzled expression, an ear-to-ear grin on his face.

"Dad taught me this one," he explained, climbing onto Ramin's mattress again and re-entangling his legs with his boyfriend's. "It fills the ears of anyone nearby with a sort of buzzing. It's very slight, and your parents won't even notice it, but they also won't hear anything that's going on in this room tonight."

"Genius," Ramin replied, his face breaking into a grin every inch as wide as Martin's. "Your dad's a complete genius."

"Ramin?" Martin said, and his boyfriend looked at him questioningly at the slightly pleading note in his voice.

"Yeah?"

"Let's not talk about my father now, all right?"

Ramin was looking straight at him, and Martin could practically see the look in his boyfriend's eyes changing from puzzled and slightly concerned to something very different at the tone in his voice. His eyes grew darker, and there was something strong and powerful, almost hungry in the look that he gave Martin now. But far from being alarmed, Martin felt a shiver of delight and glorious anticipation arch through every particle of his body as he met his boyfriend's gaze. Whatever would follow, he did not only want it. He craved it. He yearned for it.

The boys looked into each other's eyes for a few more seconds, then, as if following a silent command, they both simultaneously moved forward and their lips met once more.

* * *

Author's note:

It's been a very, very long time, I know, and I'm really sorry. But here, finally, is the next chapter – better late than never, I hope ;)

All information about wizarding America and Ilvermorny is, as always, based on the corresponding articles on wizardingworld, please check there for more information.

I have been to King's Cross station once, but it was a very long time ago and I can barely remember anything. I also have no idea what the place looked like in 1995, so I apologise if my description in this chapter contains mistakes. The same goes for Madam Tussauds, which I've actually never visited. I have no idea if the figure of Queen Elizabeth is wearing a pearl necklace, or whether it used to back in 1995. Lacking historically accurate information, I just made some things up. I hope you can forgive me for that ;) I also don't know too much about the state of development of mobile phones in 1995, what exactly they looked like, how big they were or whether they would have worked on an underground platform, so again, I described it the way that fitted best to the story I wanted to tell.

This chapter has not been betaed by a native speaker, so I apologise for any mistakes and ask you to please alert me to them so that I can correct them.

I really hope you enjoyed the chapter, and I'm glad you're still reading this story after such a long break in updates – and please, write a review and give me some feedback! I can promise that that will be a huge motivation for me, so the more reviews I get, the more likely it is that you won't have to wait for the next chapter as long as you had to wait for this one ;)

Thank you!


	19. Chapter Eighteen - The Beginning

Chapter Eighteen – The Beginning

* * *

The two weeks of the Easter holidays were some of the most wonderful of Martin's life. Philip and Michelle had accepted Martin into their family from the moment they'd first met him, and their genuine warmth and cheerfulness soon helped Martin to get over his shyness and join in their conversations, jokes and laughter as though he had known them all his life.

His relationship with his boyfriend became, if possible, even closer during those two weeks that they spent almost solely in each other's company. They went out every day, exploring both Muggle and magical London and enjoying themselves thoroughly: taking a boat trip on the Thames; strolling through St. James's Park and seeing Buckingham Palace, all the while surreptitiously giggling at the guards with their ridiculous hats that looked as though they had Nifflers draped on their heads; gazing up at the Houses of Parliament and the Big Ben; or walking through Piccadilly and the rest of the West End.

In Diagon Alley, Martin relished the chance of finally being able to spend as much time as he wanted cruising the shops, checking out all the displays in the shop windows and occasionally entering this store or that, instead of working out the quickest route between places they had to visit beforehand and then rushing through them, completing their shopping in the least amount of time possible, as he usually did when he went there with his father. Martin didn't exactly blame him for this, because he knew that neither his father nor his students enjoyed running into each other at Madam Malkin's or the apothecary, but now he was under no such limitations with Ramin, and they happily walked through Diagon Alley for hours, flicking through books in Flourish and Blotts, admiring the magnificent Firebolt on display in Quality Quidditch Supplies, sneaking curious glances down Knockturn Alley and rounding their days off with giant sundaes at Florean Fortescue's Ice-Cream Parlour.

So the days of the Easter holidays passed, but as much as Martin enjoyed every minute of them, they still could not compete with the miraculous things that took place during the nights. Sometimes even thinking about it was enough to make Martin blush, but he still would never have wanted to undo so much as a single minute of what happened between himself and Ramin after Michelle and Philip had gone to bed and the _Muffliato_ spell had been cast, just in case. Only a year ago, he wouldn't have thought it possible that there would ever be a person in his life that was closer to him than his father, but he now realised that, in just a little over eight months, Ramin had somehow managed to become just as important to him, though of course on an entirely different level. Indeed, whenever Martin's thoughts turned to his father during those wonderful holiday days, he couldn't help remembering the conversation they'd had on the evening before his departure, and a grin spread across his face every time he thought about that almost in spite of himself. Should they ever happen to discuss that topic again, Martin reflected, he certainly would not be able to look his father in the eye _now _and say that he and Ramin were "not doing anything."

Much too soon, the holidays were over, their trunks were packed, and Philip and Michelle were hugging both of them goodbye on platform nine and three-quarters before the boys boarded the Hogwarts Express. When the scarlet steam engine pulled the train out of the station and Martin and Ramin were waving to Michelle and Philip out of their compartment window, watching as their figures grew smaller and smaller in the distance, Martin had enough wonderful memories to fill a whole Pensieve, the sensation of having gained a new family and an invitation to stay with the Wilkinsons again some time during the summer holidays to take back to Hogwarts with him, and he already felt that the end of the school year could not come soon enough.

* * *

Back at Hogwarts, however, the summer holidays were soon driven completely out of Martin's mind. The start of the summer term brought with it yet another increase in the sixth-years' already considerable workload, and Martin spent most of the hours in which he wasn't sitting in – as the days grew warmer and warmer – more and more sweltering classrooms either in the library or outside the Hufflepuff common room on the adjoining terrace, where he and his friends could sit in the sun and quiz each other on the Unforgivable Curses, dos and don'ts of human transfiguration, antidotes and plants that were often no less murderous than many of the poisons they'd covered in Potions.

During all those long hours of studying, Martin often thought back longingly to the freedom of the days and the wonders of the nights he'd enjoyed during the Easter holidays, both of which he now sorely missed. Although he was, of course, still spending as much time as he could in his boyfriend's company during the day, there could be no question of continuing this new and most intimateside of their relationship at the moment – there were simply always other people around, and there was no privacy to be found anywhere, be it in the castle or grounds. What was more, all the sixth-years were so snowed under with work that Martin doubted he and Ramin would have found time to spare for any activities that did not involve pouring over books and notes or practising complicated spells, even if they'd _had_ a private spot to pursue them.

Although their really important exams, the N.E.W.T.s, were still a year away, the sixth-years would take preliminary exams in all their subjects that they needed to pass in order to be allowed to continue the courses. Martin wasn't too worried about Charms and Herbology, and he was certain that he would pass well in Potions, but he needed all the help he could get from Ramin and the others where Defence Against the Dark Arts and Transfiguration were concerned.

His boyfriend, on the other hand, looked set to ace all of his exams except for Potions, but Martin still expected him to pass in his father's class, too, even if it wasn't going to be with top marks – their continuous extra work in Potions throughout the year had paid off, and Ramin had turned into a reasonable potion maker, even if he wasn't brilliant.

John and Edward, who often studied with Martin and Ramin, both seemed quite confident as well. Edward was a good allrounder and had always received decent marks, and the only subject John really struggled with was Transfiguration, but with Edward's and Ramin's help, he, too, gradually started to improve.

Although Cedric, too, often sat with them when they were studying and repeatedly offered to help with any difficulties – something he could very easily do, since he was, and always had been, a top student – he himself wasn't studying for anything, because as a Triwizard champion, he was exempt from end-of-year exams. Instead of pouring over books and practising Protean Charms and the transfiguration of racoons into bedside tables, therefore, it was his job to prepare as best he could for the third and final task of the Triwizard Tournament, which would take place on the 24th of June – the final day of their exams, and exactly one week before the end of term.

Cedric did not learn what this last task of the Tournament was going to be until precisely one month beforehand, however. But when the evening of the 24th of May finally arrived, he left the common room shortly after dinner and re-entered it just before nine o'clock, returning from his meeting with Mr Bagman and the other champions.

Martin, Edward and John had been halfway through revising their Defence Against the Dark Arts notes, but they all looked up as Cedric crossed the room and dropped into an empty chair at their table.

"Well?" said John excitedly in a hushed voice, so as not to alert the entire room to Cedric's return before he'd had a chance to catch his breath and to tell them about the third task in private before having to inform the whole house about what was in store for him. "What's it gonna be, then? Tell us!"

Cedric looked at his three dorm-mates, who were all staring at him captivatedly, for a moment, then he broke into a grin.

"A maze," he replied, drumming his fingers on the armrests of his chair energetically, as though he couldn't wait to clear this last hurdle of the Tournament. "They're growing it on the Quidditch pitch. I couldn't believe my eyes when I first saw it, it looks totally different with hedges growing all over it! They're only about knee-high now, but Bagman said they're gonna be twenty feet on the day of the task! The Cup's gonna be at the centre of the maze, and whoever touches it first wins."

"But what about the points you got for the first two tasks?" Edward asked, frowning. "Surely they've still got to count somehow?"

"They determine the order we're being let into the maze," Cedric explained. "So Harry and I will enter first, then Krum, then Fleur! Bagman said we're all in with a chance to win, though."

"But you're gonna have a head start, Ced!" John said enthusiastically. "You just find your way through that maze quickly, and you're gonna win!" He beamed widely at the thought of Cedric actually winning the Triwizard Tournament for Hogwarts and for Hufflepuff. "Just think what you're gonna do with your thousand Galleons prize money! Do you reckon it'll be enough to buy a Firebolt?"

"He hasn't won yet," Martin cautioned. He couldn't help feeling that the relatively simple matter of finding their way through a maze, however skilfully designed, could hardly be all that was expected of the champions in this final task of the Tournament. "What else is gonna be in the maze, Cedric?"

"Some creatures of Hagrid's," Cedric said, grimacing. "And Bagman said something about enchantments, too. I reckon we'll more or less have to fight our way past them to get to the centre."

Martin nodded, as his stomach clenched uncomfortably. With the sort of creatures Hagrid was likely to put into that maze and a couple of dangerous enchantments on top, the last task sounded as if it was going to be just as dangerous as the first and second. But then, he thought reassuringly, Cedric had got through those well enough, hadn't he? Surely, he was going to manage this last one as well.

John had pulled a face at the mention of the obstacles in the maze. "Great, I bet you're gonna get a chance to meet the Blast-Ended Skrewts after all, then," he said, in a tone of deep disgust. He alone of their group had continued Care of Magical Creatures to N.E.W.T. level, and he had been complaining loudly about the Skrewts ever since the beginning of the school year.

"You'd best teach me how to fight them off, then," Cedric grinned.

As Martin looked into Cedric's glowing face and sparkling grey eyes, he thought that he didn't appear to be too worried about this task. And perhaps he was right not to be – now that he had learned what it was, he was at least going to be able to prepare for it properly.

"I wish I knew," John said darkly. "But unless you're gonna feel an urge to tie a leash around the damned thing and take it for a walk through the maze, I haven't learned anything in Care of Magical Creatures that'll come in useful."

"We should still practise, though," Edward said, his brow furrowed, as though he was already working out the best strategy for Cedric's preparation for the task. "Jinxes and counter-jinxes, and charms. And perhaps some handy transfigurations, and we should definitely revise the best way to defeat Devil's Snares and Venomous Tentaculas and the like, some of them are bound to be planted somewhere in the maze. I don't suppose Potions will come in very useful, though, I doubt you'll have time to brew anything during the task …"

"Or be allowed to take a cauldron," Cedric yawned. He stretched and then got restlessly to his feet. "I wish I could take a walk now and think about all of this, but it's past curfew already. I think I'll just go to bed, even though I doubt I'll sleep a wink tonight. I'll be too busy trying to think of good spells and hexes and stuff …"

"We'll help," Edward promised. "Tomorrow, we'll go to the library to look up some things, and then we'll start practising!"

"Definitely," John agreed, nodding fervently. "You just wait, Ced, on the 24th of June, you're gonna be so well prepared that you wouldn't _not _reach that Cup first even if you tried!"

"Come off it, John," Cedric replied, grinning, but Martin clearly saw the eagerness in his eyes before he turned and disappeared through the door into the boy's corridor. Cedric, he realised, wasn't at all concerned about merely getting through that maze safely. Nor were Edward and John. They, like all the other Hufflepuffs, and most of the other students, too, wanted Cedric to win. A mere safe return would be a disappointment to them.

"What about you, Martin? You're gonna help Ced prepare, aren't you? You and Ramin?" John asked him, pulling him out of his train of thoughts.

"What? Oh, sure!" he replied, and John grinned and enthusiastically continued planning Cedric's training with Edward.

Martin let their conversation wash over him without really taking in anything they were saying. Of course, if Cedric _did _manage to win, he, too, would be thrilled, and there was no denying that he'd enjoy seeing all the other houses looking up to a member of Hufflepuff house for once. But, he thought, and he felt a little twinge of guilt as he realised it, he didn't really care that much who was going to win the Tournament. All _he _wanted was for Cedric – and all the other champions, too, if it came to that – to come out of this Tournament happy and whole and in one piece. And that, for him, would be enough reason to celebrate, even if Cedric was chased out of the maze by a Blast-Ended Skrewt a bare five minutes into the task and finished the Tournament in last place.

* * *

The next day, his father held him back after their Potions lesson.

"Stay," he said in a very low voice as Martin handed in a sample of his potion. "I need to talk to you."

He had barely moved his lips, clearly anxious that no one but Martin should hear, but Ramin, who had gone to the teacher's desk with him to hand in a flask of his own potion, hesitated and looked questioningly from Martin to his father and back again. Martin glanced at his father's face, saw the intense look in his black eyes and the way his lips were pressed tightly together, and he knew that his father wanted to speak to him alone.

"Just wait outside," he murmured, but his father cut across him.

"There's no need," he said curtly, fixing Ramin with a penetrating stare that would have made most students quiver with fear. Ramin, however, met his eyes unflinchingly. "Go up to the Great Hall. This may take a while."

Ramin looked at Martin, who gave his father another half glance out of the corner of his eye, then nodded slightly at Ramin. "I'll join you there," he said in a low voice, and Ramin slung his bag over his shoulder and left the room, not without giving the pair of them a curious look over his shoulder.

As the door feel shut, Martin turned to face his father apprehensively. His stomach had clenched once more. What did his father want to talk to him about that was so urgent that it couldn't wait until their weekly meeting on Friday? Could it be something to do with the third task? But how would that concern him? Was it something about Ramin again? Or was it … something else? Something about that _other _topic, the one they had not discussed since that night in February?

"Martin, listen to me," his father began as soon as the door had closed behind Ramin. The look in his eyes was so intense that it was almost scary. Martin had the impression that his father was trying to look, not just _at _him, but straight _into_ him, in a way that even Professor Moody's magical eye couldn't. He spoke rapidly, as though he wanted to get whatever it was out of the way as quickly as possible, and his voice was still low, even though the two of them were now the only people left in the room.

"Do you remember what I told you about Mr Crouch? That no one had seen him in the office or anywhere else since November, that he virtually disappeared from public life?"

Martin swallowed. _Crouch. _So it _was _something to do with their talk in February.

Martin looked into his father's eyes, saw the anxiety and tension there, and felt a wave of fear wash over him. Could something else have happened now? Something even more severe than all those other things, Bertha Jorkins' disappearance, the Death Eaters at the World Cup, that … _thing _on his father's forearm growing clearer and clearer?

"Yes, I remember," he replied, in a voice that was barely more than a whisper. His mouth had suddenly become very dry.

His father's gaze flicked towards the door for a fraction of a second, then he fixed Martin again and continued, still in that same low and rapid voice: "Dumbledore's been making discreet inquiries for months, but all the information he got from Crouch's department was that he was simply taking a break from work. Dumbledore didn't believe that. He thought Crouch had to be ill or worse, and that whatever it was had to be very severe indeed to make him disappear from public life so completely."

_Ill or worse _… Martin stared up into his father's eyes, his fear swelling inside him. What could he possibly mean by that?

"And it seems Dumbledore was right," his father went on, his eyes still boring, unblinkingly, into Martin's. "For last night, Crouch appears to have been here, in the Hogwarts grounds."

Martin's mouth opened in shock and disbelief. "Here?" he gasped. "But why? And how? If he's ill, how could he just _appear _in the grounds? You can't Apparate into Hogwarts, can you?"

"No," his father replied, his eyes flicking momentarily towards the door once more. "You can't. And Crouch certainly couldn't have Apparated anywhere, considering the state he was in."

"What do you –," Martin began, but his father suddenly seized Martin's shoulder with his right hand and cut across him, speaking, if it was possible, even more intensely than before: "Martin, _listen. _Crouch was … very confused. You might even say mad. Half the time, he apparently didn't know where he was or who he was talking to, but every now and again, his mind seems to have become clearer, and then he repeatedly demanded to talk to Dumbledore. There seems to have been something extremely urgent he needed to tell him. But by the time Potter had fetched Dumbledore and they'd returned to the spot where Crouch was –"

"Harry?" Martin gasped, unable to stop himself. "Why Harry? How –"

"Potter and Krum found him," his father explained impatiently. "They apparently took a walk down to the Forbidden Forrest after they'd been told about the third task, and they found Crouch there. But that's unimportant. What matters is that when Dumbledore arrived at the place where Crouch had been, Krum was lying there Stunned, and Crouch had vanished. We searched the grounds thoroughly last night, but we could not find him anywhere. He completely disappeared."

A few seconds' silence followed these words, as his father paused and Martin tried to take in what he had just heard. Crouch in the grounds at Hogwarts? Confused, even mad, and desperate to speak to Dumbledore? And then gone, just like that? Krum, Stunned?

But … how? And why? What did all this have to do with You-Know-Who? _Did _it have anything to do with You-Know-Who, or was it possible that there was a different explanation altogether? But what?

Martin's head felt like it was about to burst. His thoughts were swirling around so fast that he had the impression the room was spinning around him.

"But … how?" he finally managed weakly, and he pressed his eyes shut in an effort to stop the spinning sensation that was making him feel dizzy. "I mean … how could he have disappeared just like that?"

"No one knows," his father replied, and Martin opened his eyes again to meet his intense stare once more. "It is of course possible that Crouch Stunned Krum and then disappeared on his own, but I don't believe that. Judging from what Potter told Dumbledore, Crouch doesn't seem to have been in any state to perform the most basic magic, let alone anything complex enough to allow him to vanish without trace from the Hogwarts grounds. I believe, and Dumbledore believes, too, that somebody – somebody present in the grounds when Potter ran to get Dumbledore – wanted to stop Crouch talking to Dumbledore, and _they, _whoever they are, attacked Krum and Crouch both. Whether it was one person or more, whether they simply silenced Crouch, put him under the Imperius curse or even killed him, I don't know."

A very heavy silence followed these words. Martin stared up at his father. For a moment, he thought he was too terrified to speak.

"_Killed?"_ he whispered finally, looking into his father's grim face, a part of him hoping against hope that he was going to retract these last words. But in his head, he knew that he was not going to. Because he couldn't. Because he couldn't, and Martin couldn't, either, shut his eyes from the fact that it was a real, serious possibility that Crouch had been murdered. Because this was not one of Beedle the Bard's tales, but brutal, cruel, ugly reality.

"Yes, Martin," his father replied, and the finality in his voice and something about the way his jaw clenched when he said it told Martin that his father thought this option not only possible, but likely. Probable, even. "But Crouch's fate is not something you should concern yourself with. Very few students know about it, and it is best if it stays that way. Tell Mr Wilkinson if you must, but no one else, do you understand?"

Martin nodded. His mind and body still felt numb with shock. Could a murder really have been committed in the grounds last night? Here, at Hogwarts, possibly while Edward and John had been enthusiastically discussing Cedric's preparation for the third task?

Martin felt as though the ground was shaking beneath his feet, but his father had not finished yet.

"I wouldn't even have told you about this," he began again, now putting his other hand onto Martin's shoulder as well. Martin felt their weight pressing down upon him, as though embodying the crushing weight of everything he had just heard. "But you _have _toknow. You have to know, because from now on, you have to watch out, Martin, do you understand? Avoid going anywhere on your own if you can help it. Stay with Mr Wilkinson, or else Diggory, Summers and Palmer. Don't go out into the grounds unless you're in a big group, and don't, whatever you do, leave your common room after hours, do you understand?"

His father's eyes bored into him, looking, it seemed to Martin, straight into his soul.

"Yes," he replied, swallowing nervously. "Yes, of course, but why –"

"There is someone at Hogwarts who shouldn't be!" his father hissed, his eyes darting towards the door again, his hands gripping Martin's shoulders so tightly that he almost cried out. "Someone attacked Crouch, someone from _inside the school_, Martin, don't you see?"

"But who?" Martin blurted out, desperate to finally shed at least a little light on this whole twisted and confusing affair. "Karkaroff? You said he was a Death Eater, couldn't he –"

He broke off as his father let out a contemptuous and utterly humourless laugh. "Karkaroff? No, Martin. Karkaroff is small, and insignificant, and weak. He is terrified of the Dark Lord returning and punishing him for all those faithful Death Eaters he betrayed to the Ministry. He would never dare to do anything as major as this, right under Dumbledore's and Moody's noses. No, it was someone else who attacked Crouch. I don't know who, or how, but I _do _know that there is someone exceptionally dangerous inside the castle, someone who won't hesitate to attack it he feels that it serves his purpose, someone who is probably capable of murder! I do not mean to frighten you", he added upon seeing Martin's terrified face, relaxing his grip on his shoulders slightly, "and I see no reason why he should be after you, but you do need to be on your guard. You should be safe enough if you stay in your friends' company, and I will of course do everything I can to keep you safe, but I cannot watch over you all the time. You need to be alert, and you need to be careful, and you need to _watch out for yourself_. Do you understand, Martin?"

Martin looked up at his father, his eyes large and round, feeling small and scared and somehow almost naked. His father had mentioned You-Know-Who returning, so he had to believe that whatever had happened to Crouch _was _connected to that horrible prospect in some way.

He felt as though his terror was pressing down on his lungs, squashing them and making it impossible for him to breathe properly. The only time he could remember ever feeling something remotely like this had been during his fourth year at Hogwarts, when the Chamber of Secrets had been opened and several students had been attacked. Then, too, he had felt as though the ground he had built his life on was shaking. If Hogwarts, the place where Albus Dumbledore, Mad-Eye Moody and many other capable witches and wizards like Professor McGonagall, Professor Flitwick, and his own Head of House, Professor Sprout, were, the place where his_ father _was, wasn't safe, where _was _it safe, then?

_Nowhere, perhaps_, a cruel little voice inside his head answered. Somewhere, deep inside him, he sensed that what his father had just told him, even though he hardly understood any of the whys and hows of it, was the beginning of something so overwhelming that he couldn't even begin to make out just how major it was. All he knew was that he did not want to find out about it, did not ever what to get involved in any of it – and yet the knowledge that it was inevitable, that whatever it was would come closer and closer and eventually engulf him, and that there was nothing whatsoever he could do to stop it, was as firm and sound within him as if it had existed all along, and he simply had not realised it was there. Now, however, he knew that he would never be able to shake off that feeling of something unstoppable coming closer and closer ever again, until it – whatever it was – had finally happened.

He swallowed. The fear was threatening to overwhelm him. He forced himself to take deep, steadying breaths, and finally managed to nod slowly. "Yes," he said, and his voice was shaking slightly. "Yes, I understand. I promise I'll be careful."

His father looked at him for another two seconds, then he, too, exhaled audibly. "Good," he murmured, and then, for the first time during their entire conversation, his lips curved into a small smile. "Come here," he said softly, and he stepped forwards and hugged Martin tightly.

Martin pressed his face into his father's chest, inhaled the familiar smell of herbs and hearth and put all his effort into trying to calm himself down. His father ran his hands over his back reassuringly, and slowly, as he continued to take deep, steadying breaths, Martin's racing thoughts and feelings gradually slowed down. All the while, his father continued rubbing his back, and he said in a quiet, yet altogether different voice from the one he'd used earlier: "Don't be frightened. You're going to be safe, I promise. I just want you to be on your guard, that's all."

Martin nodded, took a last deep breath, then let go of his father and took a step backwards. "I will, I promise," he said, and he was relieved to find his voice coming out much steadier than before.

His father looked into his eyes, and he met his gaze unblinkingly for a few seconds, until his father smiled and let go of Martin's shoulders. "Good," he said again, and his voice was warm with hardly any trace of tension left. "Well, let's go up to the Great Hall, then. I'll take you there."

Martin nodded, grabbed his schoolbag and followed his father along the dungeon corridors and up the staircase leading up to the Great Hall. But even though the blind panic he'd felt after his father's revelations had somewhat subsided now, he couldn't shake off the horrible sense of foreboding that had descended upon him. When he entered the Great Hall and looked around at all the students discussing completely mundane things such as homework, revision and exams, he almost let out a desperate laugh as he realised that, even between the third task of the Triwizard Tournament and watching out for a potential murderer running free in the school, he was still expected to perform decently in his – when you broke it down – utterly meaningless end-of-year tests.

* * *

Author's note:

Oh dear … I owe you a MASSIVE apology. I seem to remember writing something about updating a little more quickly in the last author's note, but … well. You know what became of that promise.

I'm really, really sorry that you had to wait for more than three months for this chapter, but the fact is that I've been quite busy (even despite the pandemic), and because my university courses are taking place online at the moment, I've had to reduce the screen-time at other ends. Unfortunately, this also affected writing. That is why it's taken me so long to update again, and that's also why I can make no predictions whatsoever as to when I'll be able to write and post the next chapter.

But until I do, I hope you'll at least enjoy reading this chapter (providing anyone is still reading this story, of course), and as ever, I'd be thrilled to hear what you think, so you'd really make my day if you took the time to write a review!

* * *

This chapter is based on _Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire_ by J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, London 2000, pp. 477 – 496.


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